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Fake iTunes Reviews!

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I'll post a positive one. I love the show and have heard em all. I would say that, as of late, your humor has been distracting. Seems you often interrupt a guest just to make some less than funny remark, and this distracts the guest from making the point they were getting at. Just my opinion. Long Live Paracast.
 
Well, doubling the number of ads, saying they occur every five minutes, or implying it is unusual for a network radio show (which it is not) is quite an exaggeration. Suggesting that it's more than a network radio show, or that we aren't a network radio show is just a lie.
 
Nope. No way.

The total number of commercials for a recorded segment that totals two hours, 39 minutes, 19 seconds, is about 39-40 minutes. It is NOT 7.5 minutes for each break. We record 12 segments, meaning 10 breaks. Do the math.
 
Gene Steinberg said:
Nope. No way.

The total number of commercials for a recorded segment that totals two hours, 39 minutes, 19 seconds, is about 39-40 minutes. It is NOT 7.5 minutes for each break. We record 12 segments, meaning 10 breaks. Do the math.
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For some reason I can not post in the other thread about the Paracast commercials.
I have no problem as the show has to make money some how as it is free for us to listen to people.
 
While I think the ads are a little nuts in that I hear the same ones over and over (Rockoids! Which is Gene's book so any talk of "I can't ..." is a little moot) I am not saying anything other than the average reviewer is prone to exaggerate and nothing said falls outside of that.
 
There's "prone to exaggerate" and there's just making things up. There's also a level of exaggeration that conveys a misleading picture of who and what the show is.
 
I can attest that the breaks are exactly 4 minutes. I have become very adept at fast-forwarding through them when I listen to The Paracast via my Sonos system and use the Sonos Controller app on my iPad. It's the only way I can listen to Gene and Chris now. Any other way via a different setup of mine and I cannot zip past the kooky GCN commercials fast enough.

The, perhaps naive, question I do have for Gene is this - If you don't make a decent income from having GCN distribution then why bother with having them distribute The Paracast? It seems more limiting than beneficial. I would think you have a sizable listener base at this point and guess that if you went to a subscriber model, you might create a better stream of income for you and Chris. I subscribe to another paranormal radio program that I won't mention, as it is not as good as The Paracast, IMHO, but they do have solid guests, no commercials of any kind, excellent sound quality (which is important to me) and is always at least 2 hours long. I pay $25 quarterly to be a subscriber via PayPal. I would do that in a split second for The Paracast if you converted to a subscriber model. That's $100/year/subscriber. That said, I would take issue with listening to 40 minutes of commercials AND paying money. The variables, of course, are I don't have any idea what your bandwidth and server costs are, or what your listener base is, but I assume (easy for me to do) that you could lock in at least a couple of thousand subscribers worldwide, given the history, longevity and quality of your broadcast. Perhaps even more but I just don't know what the numbers are.

I'm sure I'm NOT the first one to bring this up and make this suggestion. I'm assuming, being the astute guy that you are, you've given the subscription model serious consideration and have decided against it for reasons that are directly related to business costs. All I can say is that I'd be the first one to sign up should you ever go that way. The Paracast is an important resource and there is no one doing it as well as you and Chris do it. Thank you for all of your hard work all these years.

Best,
Chris
 
I would prefer to attempt to persuade the network to let us offer ad-free as a premium package. In the past they have said no. Now they appear to be willing to consider that move. I'm pushing.

As to sheer numbers of listeners, we do far better with the ad driven model, although some are turned off by the wacky ads. A lot of people can't afford to pay.

Ideally, I'd like to see offer premium ad-free as an option. Bit if I had sales help, I could get more paid ads too. It would help resolve this crisis mode for good and end a lot if needless anxiety. This sort of situation is not healthy at my age.
 
I know this is a very old thread, clocking in at just over year. But I would like to say that I wouldn't worry too much about the iTunes reviews. I like to think I'm "somewhat in-the-know", being a 23 year old white guy who is fairly social in my local community. I say this because I very rarely hear other people my age discuss about how they find stuff that interests them on iTunes. It's more of a buying than a browsing platform. Most who use it know what they want before they execute the program. People searching paracast on iTunes will *most likely already be into your show. I found it on a radio app called tunein when my fiancé was in labor with our child about this time last year and was instantly hoovered in with the intelligent, open yet healthily skeptical discussion. In conclusion Gene, you guys got a whole lot more going for you than a few crappy iTunes reviews. Those who matter don't mind, those who mind don't matter. - Dr. Seuss
 
hecticXx said:
I know this is a very old thread, clocking in at just over year. But I would like to say that I wouldn't worry too much about the iTunes reviews. I like to think I'm "somewhat in-the-know", being a 23 year old white guy who is fairly social in my local community. I say this because I very rarely hear other people my age discuss about how they find stuff that interests them on iTunes. It's more of a buying than a browsing platform. Most who use it know what they want before they execute the program. People searching paracast on iTunes will *most likely already be into your show. I found it on a radio app called tunein when my fiancé was in labor with our child about this time last year and was instantly hoovered in with the intelligent, open yet healthily skeptical discussion. In conclusion Gene, you guys got a whole lot more going for you than a few crappy iTunes reviews. Those who matter don't mind, those who mind don't matter. - Dr. Seuss
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Yeah, I don't think most people really read iTunes reviews, to be honest unless you are putting money down.
 
Gene:

This is more for the collective as well as for you and your team.

Honestly, I understand when things are t someone's cup of tea. However, speaking for myself, I absolutely love how you structure the Paracast. You bring an objectivity that I haven't been able to see in most involved in the paranormal field. Whether they're trolls, competitors, or just assholes, keep doing what you do! I'd suffice to say that I'm not alone in saying you're doing a great job.

-- Jordan
Gene Steinberg said:
As anyone of you who has put content accessible from Amazon or iTunes knows, there are apt to be fake reviews (complimentary and otherwise).

In that unfortunate tradition, there are one or two people who keep posting the same fake reviews about The Paracast on iTunes with different names; don't know if they are competitors or just generally nasty.

We have asked Apple to remove them, only to see them return in a new guise. One says we run eight minutes of ads between segments, which is demonstrably false (it's actually two or three, same as any other commercial radio show), and another talks of my constant goofy jokes, while most of you know that I really don't tell jokes on the show.

I invite you to post your comments about the show on iTunes — good, bad, or otherwise. Let's get the truth out there.
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Again, I have no problem with unfavorable reviews, but I am concerned when they are part of an agenda. I see that on YouTube, when they moan about the ads but fail to realize the existence of Paracast+,which we have talked about on every episode for the past 4 years.
 
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