How do you feel about the discontinuation of podcast support?

Ahhhhh. I thought you were getting tired of the orange theme color. That above is more problematic, for sure.

Oh but see it actually is a core offering and is specifically advertised as a paid for Plex Pass feature despite what you may think.

1 Like

I think you missed the point but all good.

No, I absolutely get it. They slack off on paid features (except Plexamp) and hardly anybody in this community is happy about it.

But let’s send my search terms to basically every 3rd party streaming app through a central authority aka justwatch. That was brilliant.

1 Like

The software was doing that before Discover.

I don’t have an issue as such with Plex’s focus including content aggregation. In fact, if they get it right, I’ll most likely use it. As long as they don’t do a beta release again and offer an opt in or opt out option up front.

I paid for Plexpass a decade ago and have had free updates and new features and support and indeed new apps etc for 10 years. Pretty impressive stuff.

I get why people are upset when stuff like Podcasts gets removed and even moreso apps that were part of Plexpass.

Haven’t changed my mind since this post in this very thread. Just that I have to accept I am getting something for nothing when it comes to Podcasts. Well, even offerings within Plexpass given it is over 10 years since I got lifetime. Different for those that are doing monthly subs ofcourse.

Ying and Yang :smiley:

1 Like

Adding on to my previous disappointments at the very short notice we’ve had for podcasts going away.

It turned out impossible for me to follow the manual XML export way of getting my Plex podcasts :unamused:

So I’ve now had to spend considerable time manually importing my 96 Plex configured podcasts + then manually updating the listened status for all those! :sob:

So this has definitely tarnished my opinion of Plex as both unfortunate and very badly managed timing wise.

6 Likes

Yeah, the podcast section was one of the things I used Plex every day for, and having just one week to export the data and find an alternative is not the greatest customer service. Not everyone checks their personal email every day.

I’ve used other podcast apps before, I’ll be okay, but it feels annoying and weird to deal with this while, in the meantime, my Android TV Plex wants to become a one-stop-shop for all of my video streaming.

Thing is (deep breath), I first got into Plex as an AUDIO solution to keep my music collection straight. The video parts are and always will be secondary to me. But that seems to be the way the whole product is going, because video streaming.

4 Likes

I’m curious - does anyone know of a Roku app that supports RSS podcast subscriptions? I’m losing the ability to play podcasts on my media center without casting from another device, which sucks ass. Google Podcasts is largely a suitable replacement except there’s no Roku app.

If your Roku device is current and has Bluetooth on it, then all you have to do is connect your Android phone or tablet using the Bluetooth paring for audio from your phone to be played to your Roku device.

I have tested this with the Roku Sound Bar, but unfortunately this doesn’t work for older streaming stick models if they don’t have Bluetooth.

There aren’t any apps that I’m aware of that singularly work for podcasts. If you happen to use Spotify and have a premium account, you can opt to use your podcasts through them.

The other is long running, Tune-In.

Casting from an Android device has always been problematic and up until recently, now that Apple and Roku allowed AirPlay, I’ve used my iOS devices with Roku instead of Android.

I just find it interesting how Plex says they are attempting to be your one-stop source for media, yet they are going to remove Podcasts?

Sounds like there is no money in Podcasts for Plex.

5 Likes

This is not only a really questionable decision, but it’s being handled VERY poorly.

For people who use podcasts, they tend to be a pretty routine part of life, and to have the feature dropped with so little warning is especially rough. Plex’s announcement comes across as especially cold, not giving people time to migrate off or even showing that they care.

But yep, Plex wants to be the one stop shop for media, and that’s great, let’s do that. I LOVE having a single media app that can span devices. That’s the real value proposition.

It’s going backwards with stuff like dropping podcast support, though.

5 Likes

I use the podcast feature everyday along with Plexamp.
Having both my own music and Podcasts in a single app has been an invaluable convenience.
Now, my vehicles Bluetooth is going to be constantly fighting over which media to auto-play, Plexamp or (insert podcast app here).
Already switched from Google Play Music to Plex/Plexamp; guess it’s time to see if Emby, Jellyfin or something else has music/podcasts in a single app.

3 Likes

I just read about this from my news feed (via The Verge). Otherwise, I wouldn’t have known. Maybe the Plex apps should splash a notice about features that are going away too!

Anyway, yes, this is one of the few Plex features we actually use. I never needed anything fancy—I just get tired of having to open a separate app for every little thing I want access to.

I agree with others here though: 1) this goes against the centralization/aggregation concept yet 2) Plex has become very video streaming centric, and 3) why not depreciate Podcast but leave it in place as a basic feature?

However, I have Plex for 3 main reasons: live TV/DVR, personal music library, personal movie library. Most of this from our home entertainment computer, which since it’s Linux, we are using the Web Player (which still has some playback issues
timeshift problems mainly) and Plexamp occasionally to bluetooth to the spa. Still waiting for that official Linux-based Plex app.

I guess no more sitting around the warm glow of the Plex screen at night listening to our favorite podcasts.

5 Likes

Same! I wouldn’t have heard about this if not for something popping up on Google News.
Plex really dropped the ball on customer engagement with this, and I do hold that against them.

It’s bad enough to discontinue a feature so many of us rely on, but that’s just how things go sometime. To kill it on short timeline without notifying users is next level bad.

6 Likes

It would have been fine with me if they kept a bare-bones Podcast functionality in the product, e.g., stream only. Cut the features that don’t work instead of cutting the entirety of Podcasts integration. Podcasts are the thing I open Plex for most frequently.

6 Likes

This is becoming odd. I would have thought Plex was dropping Podcasts due to lack of interest in the feature, but based on these forums and reddit, it seems like Podcasts get quite a bit of usage.

3 Likes

And +1 for ridiculous amount of lead time and terrible communication.

3 Likes

This is reminiscent, in all the wrong ways, of Google now. I have a rule that I just don’t bother trying new services from Google, due to their track record of releasing new things, then doing minimal improvements, and eventually ending the service when it inevitably doesn’t get enough traction.

At some point, you have to hold out some hope that tech companies will understand that, if they’re releasing a product, they’re releasing it for real and for long-term, even if it has a low number of adoptions. That provides credibility when you release future products. Consider it part of your marketing campaign: You can rely on us to support our products long-term, so come use our new product.

When closing a service like this, the default assumption from the company seems to be: Oh well, we dumped a low-use product. Savings! But over time, it creates the perception that users shouldn’t bother trying their new products, because those will eventually go away, too.

In short, I’m not really worked up about the closing of podcasts, even though I occasionally have used it. But it leaves me less likely to use or get attached to Plex’s future offerings. It’s easy for Google to get away with such behavior with how ubiquitous they are, but I don’t know if Plex has the luxury of having so many “disposable users”.

5 Likes

But that didn’t make any sense for them to do that either because DOWNLOADS were apparently very difficult for the devs to have worked on. They tried to get podcasts downloading to work, I know they have, but no matter how many times they tried, everyone here on the forums had something happen that rendered it problematic.

Adding basic features for downloads like recent 3 Episodes or all were pretty standard in other podcast apps that seemed to have gotten it all ironed out. Plex didn’t quite have success in having these basic but fundamental functions accessible and working in the Plex App. Somehow, because of Elan, the PlexAmp app was the ONE shiny gem that I thought would have saved their behinds for Podcasts.

They had two options from this point, either get rid of the broken importing functionality all together and improve the podcast library aggregator and open it up to proper submissions to other podcasts to get listed, OR shut it down.

Plex decided to kill it and I disagree with their decision, especially when Podcasts are still a valuable form of media consumption.

Plex could have had Podcasts in the palm of their hand had they not stumbled so much and been so stubborn.

Spotify and other companies honed in on this opportunity all the while podcasts in Plex sat to rot.

1 Like