The introduction of the podcast:transcript tag has been a massive leap forward, allowing podcast apps to display transcripts in sync with the audio. However, shows using dynamic ad insertion have not been able to benefit from this feature. In today’s world, with SiriusXM facing a lawsuit for not offering transcripts for its podcasts, all publishers need to prioritize transcripts, and podcast apps should strive for a best-in-class experience for their users.

Why can’t DAI podcasts use the transcript tag?

With each host implementing DAI in their own way, there are many flavors of dynamic ad insertion. To offer audience targeting or programmatic advertising, enterprise-grade hosts must decide which ads will be served after the podcast has received the request yet before the episode is sent to the listener.¹

Two people standing beside each other could download the same episode and receive different ad placements and episode durations. If you served a transcript with the same timestamps to both, it would quickly become apparent that the timestamps and audio are drifting further out of sync with every ad break. To avoid this, the podcast would need to provide a unique transcript for each request resynced to account for the placement and duration of the ads.

1. Client-side syncing

Recently, Snipd announced that they were using AI to detect dynamic ads and resync the transcripts with the audio. It is especially impressive that they do this on-device every time a listener streams an episode. Snipd is transcribing all English podcasts themselves, but they aren’t respecting existing transcripts in the RSS feed. That’s a real shame if their automated transcription has any mistranscriptions that the podcasters could have addressed.

2. ID3 Tags

Any DAI podcast with chapters already adjusts the chapter markers in their ID3 tags to account for ad insertion. Similarly, the ID3 spec also includes a way to provide synchronized lyrics/text in MP3 files. Podcasts could provide resynced transcripts with each response. However, without podcast apps willing to display them, there hasn’t been an incentive for DAI podcasts to adopt this method.

3. Link headers

Recently, Chris Quamme Rhoden (Co-founder & CTO of RadioPublic, acquired by Acast) suggested a new approach: Link headers. When an audio file is requested, a podcast could provide one or more Link headers attached to the audio response pointing to a transcript tailored specifically for that request. This has the advantage over MP3 transcripts of working with any media codec, avoids dealing with ID3 tags, and supports multiple transcript formats or translations per request. Publishers would need to serve dynamically generated transcripts tailored for each request, and podcast apps would need to cache them alongside the downloaded audio. This is the most promising solution, but it has the furthest to go to achieve widespread adoption.

Looking ahead

I hope to see the podcasting industry fully embrace synced transcripts to provide an accessible experience for all types of shows, regardless of how they’re monetized. So many great features are unlocked if we widely adopt high-quality transcripts, and it feels like that future’s in sight.

For many years, I moaned and groaned about the lack of easily accessible transcripts in podcasting. Projects like David Smith’s Podcast Search and Descript tempted me to scratch my own itch, but I shelved my idle designs when faced with the economic realities of high-quality transcription. As pieces of the puzzle started to come together, namely the <podcast:transcript> tag, I dusted off my mockups and revisited the project. And after a few delays, I’m excited to launch this early preview.

Meet Steno.fm

Steno.fm is a proof-of-concept podcast app designed with first-class support for transcripts. Today, we’re launching the alpha experience.

Transcripts

The transcripts are made possible by all the hosts and podcasters that have adopted the transcript tag. Currently, there’s over 24,000 podcasts and nearly 600,000 episodes using the transcript tag.

Explore

The homepage features collections of podcasts that support the transcript tag. Please submit your show for an existing collection or propose a new collection by emailing hello@steno.fm.

Trending Episodes with OP3

Thanks to the generous work of John Spurlock, Our Trending page features episodes with both a transcript tag and the OP3 prefix.

Chapters

Chapters are another great tool for podcasters to provide more structured data to enrich their episodes, and we’re proud to support them.

Person

Steno.fm has also added support for the <podcast:person> tag. You can now see credits for everyone involved in the production of a podcast in a new tab on any episode pages.

Trailer, Season & Episode

We’re also taking advantage of the <podcast:trailer>, <podcast:season>, and <podcast:episode> tags. Season and episode numbers appear in the Episodes tab on any show page, and any podcast with a trailer will have that highlighted at the top of the show page. Otherwise, serial shows will promote their first episode, and episodic shows will promote their latest episode.

Funding

Adding the <podcast:funding> tag was another quick win. You can locate it alongside other show-level details on the new Info tab.

Search

We’ve also created a search field that incorporates multiple podcast APIs, including the Podcast Index, to help you find any show you’re looking for.

GUID

We’re using the <podcast:guid> value for our show URLs. These UUIDs have a number of advantages over base64-encoded feed URLs, and we hope to see more products take advantage of them.

More to come!

If you’d like to get involved, please reach out via Twitter or email. In the meantime, subscribe to the blog to follow our progress.

Steno.fm supports multiple methods of fetching captions for your podcasts. But the best experience for your listeners requires a host that supports Podcasting 2.0 transcripts.

Top Hosts

Using data provided by Livewire Labs, let’s look at the top retail hosts ranked by share of all new episodes found in October 2022 with the transcript tag.

1. Buzzsprout (46.25%)

Buzzsprout leads the pack in transcript tag adoption. Considering they wrote the initial proposal in September 2020, this isn’t surprising. Buzzsprout supports importing transcripts from Descript, Otter.ai, Temi, uploading your own .SRT file, as well as a field to input a transcript manually.

2. Captivate (16.49%)

Captivate was also an early adopter with the feature rolling out in March 2021. They also support importing from Descript, uploading your own .SRT file, or manual entry.

3. Sounder (14.31%)

Sounder punches well above its weight relative to their volume of episodes. They only adopted the transcript tag in February 2022. They earned this position by providing free transcription with every plan, which makes sense, given their investment in brand safety tools. Unfortunately, Sounder will be shutting down their hosting platform to focus on brand safety.

4. Transistor (8.36%)

Transistor adopted the transcript tag in July 2021. They also support importing transcripts from Descript, uploading your own .SRT file, or manual entry.

5. RSS.com (2.18%)

RSS.com adopted the transcript in December 2021. You can only add a transcript via manual entry, so your transcript will only be plain-text and not synced to the audio.

6. Nox Solutions (2.14%)
7. Omny Studio (1.93%)
8. Podbean (1.83%)
9. Blubrry (1.38%)
10. Fireside.fm (0.73%)
11. Soundstack (0.34%)
12. Audioboom (0.30%)
13. Castos (0.16%)
14. All others (3.60%)

A few more hosts that didn't make the list here have indicated their adoption of the transcript tag with the PodcastIndex.

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Snipd Rolls Out Innovative Solution to Sync Audio & Transcripts for Episodes with Dynamic Ads:

Dynamic ads can be a pain for listeners and podcast players. Since the dynamic ads of an episode can vary from one listening session to the next, this causes the transcripts of the episode to be out-of-sync.

The innovation uses AI to detect dynamic ads and uses that information to resync transcripts to the audio while still streaming from the original RSS source.

Blubrry Partners with Rev for Podcast Transcription and Captioning:

Blubrry is introducing a new web-based podcast player that uses transcription products integrated with Rev. This player will provide Blubrry podcasters with closed captioning and transcriptions, making every word actionable and accessible.

New Castos Dashboard, Onboarding, and Podcast 2.0 Support!:

Since launching Value 4 Value support for Castos customers, we started rolling out additional Podcast 2.0 features for our Seriously Simple Podcasting WordPress users.

We’re now including the Transcript tag support for users using our Transcript add-on plugin. This allows users to deliver podcast transcripts through the RSS feed in .txt, .html, .srt, and .vvt format. This is a fantastic feature that only the Podcast 2.0 standard supports. We believe transcripts are the future for podcast apps and directories to enhance a podcaster’s reach.

EditEddy by Headliner launches on ProductHunt:

EditEddy by Headliner lets you upload your spoken word audio, get a fast, reliable transcript then edit your audio by editing the text. Remove filler words with the click of a button & correct any errors in the transcript.

Sounder Updates: Transcription Levels Up, Joining the Podcast Index, and Connecting Creators to our ADC Enterprise Technology:

Sounder has implemented a number of tags in Podcast Index’s RSS Namespace Extension for Podcasting (Tag Specification), to support their directory in protecting an open ecosystem in audio. Now, your episode’s full transcript can be found in supporting apps in addition to your Sounder webpage.

Poddin launches on ProductHunt:

There are many similar products on the market, so what are the advantages of Poddin?

Accuracy, we can provide industry-leading accuracy in speech recognition, and after testing by our few users. This means you don't have to spend too much time editing and proofreading. You don't have to worry about your accent either.

Cheap. We're cheaper than most podcast transcription tools, 50 times cheaper than Rev, and 8 times cheaper than Happy Scirbe. Podcast hosts pay a lot of bills every month, but for Poddin I don't want the Poddin to be a burden to you.

Unlike some businesses and companies, Poddin is just my personal project, self-funded. The reason I originally set up Poddin was that I didn't have time to listen to podcasts, so reading would save me a lot of time. So Poddin is sort of a project created by the audience

Podbean Adds Podcast Transcript and Crowdfunding Tags:

Some podcast directories such as Apple Podcasts will link to your transcript file and allow your podcast transcript to serve different purposes, such as being able to search for a podcast based on the transcript. Currently, we support .srt file type for transcripts.

Key quote:

We can’t sue every bad podcast provider in a single lawsuit and had to start somewhere, but it is important to deaf and hard of hearing users that transcripts be provided across all podcast platforms,” Christina Brandt-Young of DRA said in an email to The Verge. “It’s deeply concerning to us that even when the authors of podcasts make their transcripts available elsewhere (like some podcasts from the New York Times), SiriusXM, Stitcher, and Pandora don’t provide them through their services, making our clients work twice as hard to get the same information everyone else gets.

Amazon Music launches synced transcripts:

The service plans to roll out automatically generated, synchronized transcripts on both iOS and Android in the US starting today, meaning the transcripts will match the audio you’re hearing, and you can toggle around them to jump to specific parts of the audio. For now, the transcripts are only coming to certain Amazon Music and Wondery shows, along with partner programs that have worked with Amazon on the feature, like *This American Life* and *Crime Junkie*.

Podcastpage.io recommends adding transcripts to your podcast website and shows how to do it on their platform:

This way your audience can navigate to that page but also can easily search for other episodes as well. If you add timestamps in your transcript, Podcastpage would automatically turn those into clickable links and help your listeners to jump to specific spots within your episodes.

Zencastr adds transcription to their professional plan:

Now for every English-language recording on Zencastr, a transcript of the entire conversation is automatically generated and available to be downloaded alongside your individual audio and video files.

Todd Spangler at Variety covered the story:

The FCC said the action against Pluto TV marks the first consent decree — and first enforcement action — related to closed-captioning rules that apply to internet-based services since their adoption in 2012. “Given the growth of streaming services, this action reinforces the FCC’s commitment that people with disabilities should be able to access and enjoy streaming services,” the bureau said in a statement. The FCC’s IP closed-captioning rules apply broadly to the distributors, providers and owners of internet-delivered video programming. The rules require the closed captioning of IP-delivered video programming and impose requirements on certain devices that receive or play back video programming. Under the FCC’s regulations, all full-length video programming streamed over the internet must be provided with closed captions if the programming was previously aired on television in the U.S. with captions (or is live programming simulcast on TV in the U.S. with captions).