I don't see much talk about the Spotify for Podcasters platform (https://podcasters.spotify.com/), which seems to be completely free and unlimited for hosting along with other features.

Any thoughts on the pros / cons or issues or anyone having good experience (or bad) on this platform?

Looking to do a music related podcast featuring songs and some talk about the music played. Seems for legality and ease of implementation Anchor?Spotify's Music + Talk is the way to go but I am wonder if there are other options out there.

I did a podcast w my friends in hs that was surprisingly easy to monetize posted theough anchor. Since then anchor has been bought by spotify and turned into Spotify for Podcasters, and im worried it won’t be as good anymore. For anyone who was paying attention during the switch, is Spotify for podcasters just as good as anchor or are other alternatives now better to post through?

Hey all, I've decided to start a podcast, again. I had one years ago, maybe close to ten years ago, and I used Anchor, which did recording, distribution, monitization, everything. But Anchor seems to be gone!

Is there anything else that worked the way Anchor did? Did some other company swallow it up? Thanks for any advice. :)

I was going to get back into podcasting, but I found out yesterday that Anchor is now Spotify for Podcasters. Then I found out that those easy tools that Anchor had that were transferred to Spotify for Podcasters are going away in June and being replaced by Riverside. I tried Riverside and it's awful. I couldn't get it to recognize my microphone. Then when I got it to recognize my microphone and I went into their studio I was totally lost. I finally managed to record a sound snippet and I couldn't find any intro/outro/background music. I found a few sound clips for things like drumrolls and applause. I tried asking Spotify for Podcasters' stupid chatbot if the old Anchor features are going to be transferred to Riverside but of course it didn't understand me. Do any of you know if those easy features from Anchor are going over to Riverside in June or am I just going to go back to finding royalty free music and making my own intros and outros and putting everything together in Audacity?

So I’ve been using Anchor to post podcast content to Spotify because it’s a free ‘hosting’ platform, but I’ve noticed that most podcasts that are much ‘bigger and seemingly more professional’ all seem to use more official RSS feeds. Is there a very specific reason for this? Is it the only way to get monetised and more exposure? If anyone else knows more about Anchor, could you share what any drawbacks are? Thanks.

I work for an organization that publishes a daily podcast built from multiple prerecorded interchangeable segments. Some portions of the podcast rotate based on the day of the week, some rotate every three days, and one portion is unique to each day of the year.

We started with Anchor, which was perfect for the modular design of our podcast. We simply uploaded our prerecorded library in segments, then dragged and dropped to produce each episode.

Anchor was incorporated into Spotify, and Spotify announced just last week that the drag and drop editor originally made by Anchor is being discontinued in June 2024, to be replaced by Riverside.

What platform should we use once the Anchor editor is gone for good? It's crucial that it offers modular editing from prerecorded segments, as years' worth of our podcast content is constructed this way. Is Riverside worth a shot, or is there another platform that would be a better fit?

Edit:

I ended up creating a basic Python script using pandas and Pydub. It references a spreadsheet with instructions on which segment to include in each episode, pulls those segments from a directory, then outputs a named file. After dealing with some file naming flubs, I was able to assemble a year's worth of podcasts in a couple hours.

I realize this is a pretty niche situation, but if anyone else finds themselves having to produce a bunch of podcast episodes this way, just shoot me a DM and I'll be happy to share what I have.

Hi All,

Looking for some comments here, I know there are a thousand threads on Anchor, yes I've read them all. Most seem to be outdated or overly simple, either saying "it's free and good" or they are posted by someone who seems to have another agenda.

I'd really like to hear from people currently using Anchor if any of these common complaints are still true.

1. Anchor owns your content. > Their TOS specifically says otherwise.

2. Moving to another host is a mess. > I've read all the articles about how they don't allow 301 redirects, how you can't download your original files or move them. They address this here: https://help.anchor.fm/hc/en-us/articles/360045927851-Initiating-a-301-Redirect-to-a-New-Host I've also seen people saying they only convert .m4a files if you use their editing software.

3. They upload to THEIR Apple account, not YOUR Apple account. > Again, this just doesn't appear to be true? They tell you how to access your stats from podcastconnect: https://help.anchor.fm/hc/en-us/articles/360032820251-Accessing-Apple-Podcasts-Analytics Bonus that this article also shows you how to change your email in the feed, which I've seen other complaints about. Also, the same for Stitcher, they don't distribute there but you can just sign up and drop your RSS feed, is this not that simple? https://help.anchor.fm/hc/en-us/articles/360039016112-Submitting-your-podcast-to-Stitcher-for-distribution

4. Ads. > Okay, I know ads are not worth much unless you have several thousand downloads, but you can use their system for making ads in your podcast. My main question is, does Anchor automatically put ads on your content for using their free service? Edit: answered

Thanks everyone for your comments. If people have other complaints or notes I will update this post to reflect.

Starting a podcast. I signed up with Anchor. I liked that it’s easy to invite guests to calls and it’s easy to edit on their platform.

Curious if there is anything I should take into consideration before committing to Anchor?

A few weeks ago, I had started a music podcast (basically a radio show) using Anchor through Spotify, where you're able to add songs from Spotify, as well as recorded audio clips together to create an episode. Spotify allows you to use songs from their catalog, so long as the episode is released through Spotify only. However, today they got rid of that feature and replaced it exclusively with the editing program Riverside, which does not allow for songs to be added to a podcast from Spotify.

Basically, my question is: Does anyone know of any other programs with a similar feature where I can use songs without any worry of copyright infringement? I would really hate to shut down my brand new show just because of a change like this.

I saw on other threads that Anchor is undesirable. I'm a newbie and only have a few episodes, but Anchor has been very easy to work with. Not making any $ off it at the moment and probably won't as my subject matter doesn't attract big sponsors. What do others find wrong with Anchor?

Anchor had it all, ambient background music, chunk editing, fade in/out.
Now I’m stuck searching for alternatives that aren’t trash.
Tried Riverside. it’s garbage. Any real replacements out there?

Hi,

I want to publish my podcast with anchor to Spotify and then Google and Apple. Is this process hassle free/simple?

New Spotify for Podcasters Brings the Best of Spotify to All Creators
https://newsroom.spotify.com/2023-03-08/new-spotify-for-podcasters-podcast-features/

Had a podcast a couple of years ago on Anchor, and I want to delete it from everywhere.

It's still up on Spotify, Apple Podcasts etc - but I can't get the RSS feed link I need that would allow me to delete it from all these places.

Am I fucked and there's nothing I can do, if I didn't save the original Anchor link before it migrated to Spotify for Podcasts?

I had a very small show through Anchor before it became "Spotify for Podcasters". When I go to https://podcasters.spotify.com/dash/home, I can see my podcast, but I can't interact with it, the left hand pane doesn't show it as registered to my Spotify account for some reason. When I try to claim it using the old Anchor RSS feed link, it tells me the podcast is already hosted on Spotify and prompts me to login again, I do so and it takes me to https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/dashboard/home
But then It shows me a dashboard with a podcast as "Untitled", all episodes gone, nothing is there. Is there any way to make this all sync up again?

For more than a week now, the following has happened to several people paying for a subscription to at least one Anchor podcast:

They visit anchor.fm/[the podcast username]/subscribe

They pay (and their email address is shared with the podcaster, if they have ticked a box).

But they DON'T get any confirmation email from Anchor/Spotify. Which is particulary bad, since that confirmation email should contain a link that for (at least some) subscribers seems to provide the only standard way to actually end the subscription.

(At least some) subscribers don't register any subscriber accounts. When they are about to end the subscription, they must find the confirmation email that they received when they started the subscription.

But now some people don't (even) get that email.

They can copy the RSS address that they saw on the confirmation screen and save it, to at least start listening (in other apps than Spotify).

If they fail to do that, and don't get any confirmation email, they won't even know what to do to start listening.

And, even worse, they won't know what to do to END the subscription that they have PAID for. Since the only standard way to do that seems to be through THE CONFIRMATION EMAIL THAT THEY HAVEN'T RECEIVED.

Which makes the Anchor podcaster look like some kind of scammer.

I won't even mention how the responses from Anchor's support have been.

I might delete this post if they just FIX IT.

I recently started a podcast and signed up for Spotify for Podcasters as my hosting site because I know it was previously Anchor, and Anchor always marketed free distribution to other podcast platforms. I successfully uploaded my first episode yesterday (4/2) and its available on Spotify. My question is, do I need to do anything additional to post to other platforms (Apple, Google, Amazon, etc.), or will it automatically be posted to those sites ?

I believe Anchor used to do this automatically (not sure since I never used the original Anchor). But I was not sure if the switch to Spotify for Podcasters changed anything?

People have told me they watch podcasts in video format on Spotify but my host (Buzzsprout) doesn't seem to allow this. Looking around it seems you can only do it through Anchor but I'm just surprised I can't see more people annoyed at Spotify forcing you to use one host.

Is it possible to upload video podcasts to Spotify without switching hosts?

If it isn't, is it worth switching? I see posts about people complaining about poor service from Anchor for example.