Let's improve our radio & podcasts experience

We, listeners, shall become our own curators

Retrospective: the first working live radio ad filter

  • From 2015 to 2019, Adblock Radio has offered a live radio player that was able to skip ads.
  • The player is not available anymore and the author has moved on to other topics.
  • This project has been the opportunity to develop a signal processing technique, between machine learning and acoustic fingerprinting. Code is published below.
  • The aim was to give listeners another way to financially support radio and podcasts than ads. Some kind of Spotify for podcasts and live content.
  • The venture has fallen in a Bermuda triangle (!) between: what listeners were willing to pay for, what the author was able to build and what the lawyers of media companies have not blocked (or would not have).
  • Thanks to all of you that supported this fascinating project, I hope our paths cross each other again soon!

Open source libraries to use in radio and podcast products

Ads detection algorithm

The filter combines machine learning and acoustic fingerprinting (Shazam-like) techniques. It is able to distinguish between music, talk and ads. It recognizes most new ads by itself.

Learn more about how it works. Get the training (coming soon) and prediction source code.

Buffer Player

A standalone player that plays webradio streams, time-shifted by 10 minutes. When ad breaks are detected, it fast-forwards them so you get continuous music and radio shows. If fast-forwarding is not an option, it hops to another station. Also gives you live metadata.

Under development. Contributions are welcome.

Webradio live metadata

Always know what is on air on your favorite radios. This modules goes on each radio's website and parses the live metadata: artist, title and album cover if available. Under the hood, this is a collection of URLs and scraping recipes.

Contributions are welcome.

Acoustic fingerprint of continuous streams

Haven't you always been amazed by how Shazam recognizes music? Some might think it is black magic, but actually its skill comes from a clever algorithm named landmark that extracts signatures from music… and also from ads. This module is an implementation that works on continuous audio streams such as radio. Feel free to use it in your own projects.

Get the source code.

For more genuine relationships between media and their audience

Alexandre Storelli

Stargazer

  • In 2015, I have completed physics PhD studies that involved data analysis and signal processing skills. As a radio listener, I decided to put this experience to good use by bringing about major change in the radio sector. My goal is to encourage media to rely less on ads, and more on direct subscriptions.
  • Direct commercial relationships between consumers and editors have many advantages. A prominent one is that it allows a better alignment of the interests of media and consumers, leading to content that is less addictive and of better quality. I strongly believe in ethical design principles that embed a genuine respect of users at the core of products. To learn more about this, see for example what the Center for Humane Technology advocates.
  • Part of our society is looking for solutions alternative to advertising. Adblock Radio helps radios make their transition.
  • Made with ♥ in Lyon, France. This project is not related to my past and present employers.
  • Want to chat? Write to contact [at] adblockradio [dot] com or click the button below.
Let's get in touch !

Adblock Radio fosters a necessary debate

Very well-explained post on designing an audio ad-blocker -- the best solution uses a combination of audio fingerprinting with acoustic
classification using Keras LSTMs over Mel-spectrograms. [+] 

François Chollet

Creator of Keras, Deep learning @ Google

“You knew it was only a matter of time,” one industry veteran who shared AdBlock Radio’s website with us notes. We agree. Consider it the ultimate punishment for ridiculously long stop sets in a Spotify world.  [+]

Adam Jacobson

Veteran radio industry journalist at RBR

L’avenir des médias audio, reposera sur un contenu de qualité, soit payé par souscription, soit financé par une publicité créative ou utile, ultra ciblée, explicitement acceptée et réellement appréciée par l’auditeur. [+] 

Michel Colin

Expert en publicité radio

Merci à vous de bidouiller pour rendre ce merveilleux monde numérique à sa pureté originelle, sans pub. [+] 

Colas Zibaut

Head of Digital Video Content @ France Inter

Mon plus vif intérêt va à l'arrogance d'un arbitre des élégances auto-proclamé. (...) Qui est-il, qui êtes-vous pour juger de la qualité ? [+] 

Jean-François Latour

Directeur d'antenne chez Oüi FM

The idea's interesting. [+] 

James Cridland

Radio futurologist

Stupid idea. [+] 

Mike Vitti

Visionary programme maker

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