Sounder.FM is Shutting Down its Podcasting Hosting
My condolences to those of you who host your show on Sounder.FM. The former host and podcast advertising platform announced on Tuesday, November 1st that it would be shutting down its hosting services by January 31, 2023 (and its ads platform by December 31, 2022).
What does that mean for those hosting on Sounder and why we should all be diligent no matter what platform we're using to host — on today's episode of the all-new Good Morning, Podcasters!
Links to the things we discussed this episode:
- Captivate Podcast Hosting - Here's my podcast host of choice. (affiliate link) They're offering a special promotion for Sounder users. If you contact support and tell them you're switching from Sounder, they'll help you out.
- SanDisk 1TB Extreme SSD Backup Drive - These are the backup drives that I use to store the backups of all my shows.(affiliate link)
- FAQs - Sounder Hosting & Ad Platform Sunset
- Sunsetting the Sounder Podcasting Platform
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Transcript
Fuzz Martin 0:00
:Fuzz Martin 0:45
Well, that's a bummer. Sounder is and soon we'll say "was" a podcast hosting platform and podcast ads platform. They told their hosting clients that they are, quote, doubling down on data and that they were going to sunset their podcasting platform, according to the blog posts on their website from CEO Kal Amin in. He said, "As I shared last week, what we've discovered through conversations with hundreds of industry stakeholders is that it's a real challenge, to have access to the data and insights required to make decisions and act. In response, we're going to be focusing our attention on the biggest opportunity in audio, building data solutions for audio, we are hyper focused on continuing to build out the world's leading brand safety, brand suitability, and contextual targeting solutions for audio content."
Fuzz Martin 1:39
very bad for the hundreds or:Fuzz Martin 2:15
:Fuzz Martin 2:48
This is probably actually a risk for any host if you're not hosting on your own. And hosting on your own is no fun. So it's kind of a risk either way, back in the day, because I'm an oldie, we used to host our episodes on Amazon's s3 storage platform, and then manage the RSS feed through Blubrry podcasts plugin for WordPress. It wasn't totally foolproof, because Blubrry could have trashed the plugin anytime. But if Amazon ever got rid of s3, the world would be in a world of hurt, so it wasn't so worried about that.
Fuzz Martin 3:26
Also, one thing that really isn't good for Sounder customers is that they're going to have to start over with their analytics. According to sounders FAQs. "Your historical numbers will not change, but you must download an all time data export. To save relevant metrics around your podcasts. Please refer to the download section of this help article. For the steps to follow. Please note that data from sounder will not appear in your new hosts analytics dashboard. Your data from sounder will live in the CSV file that is provided after your export of all time data."
Fuzz Martin 4:00
So in other words, you will always have to add the old stats to the new stats and whatever new podcasting platform you come to, and then explain that to your sponsors. This becomes a big plus for services like charitable or pod track. But just like Sounder either or both of those could go away at any time and you could be a podcast creek without a paddle. Sounder has put together an interesting list of hosting providers that their customers can switch to the first is Spreaker. Spreaker is actually offering a 50% off deal to those who switched with the code "sounder50" all lowercase. Sounder's also promoting acast, RedCircle, Anchor and Podbean. I've used Spreaker before and I liked the platform. That said, I highly recommend Captivate. That's who I host all of my podcasts through and the team there is top notch. But again, any one of those platforms could go away at any time.
Fuzz Martin 4:55
And there's always a chance that they're going to go away in the blink of an eye so be sure to backup your show. And also, be sure to backup things like your notes, titles and other information as well. You never know when you're going to need it. to backup my shows I have a few SanDisk 1TB extreme portable solid state drives. They're lightning fast. I haven't had any problems with them. A one terabyte drive's about $110 on Amazon. I'll provide a link in the show notes.
Fuzz Martin 5:27
Again, my condolences to all of the Sounder customers who are living with the uncertainty of not knowing who their host is going to be right now. Just remember, it could happen to any of us at any time. It could happen to me right now. But I sure hope it doesn't.
Fuzz Martin 5:45
Thanks for listening to episode two of Good Morning Podcasters. I hope to have the new website up and running soon. I'm just waiting for Tan the Man to transfer the domain and we'll be up and running shortly after that. Until then, I've set up a substack account which I will link to in the show notes and on Twitter at @gmpodcasters. You can also follow my personal account @FuzzMartin and be sure to click the subscribe button in the podcast player that you're listening to right now. And we'll talk to you next time right here on Good Morning Podcasters
