Understanding Apple's Explicit Content Guidelines To Better Categorize Your Show

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Hey everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tom Hazard, your host. Today I want to talk about a subject that I bet many of you seasoned podcasters would think, oh, I don't need to hear that. Why do we need to talk about that? Again, I understand it, and you might, but I'm willing to bet the vast majority of you experienced podcasters and new podcasters alike really have a common misunderstanding of Apple's explicit content guidelines. So what I want to talk about today is understanding Apple's explicit content guidelines to better categorize your show and to make sure your show actually is achieving what you want it to in terms of messaging, but also that you don't end up sort of in the crosshairs of Apple saying, hey, you know what? We're going to delist your show until you fix this.

So let me get to it here, and I want to start actually by sharing that there's no official legal controlling authority over podcasts as a whole. Okay? And broadcast television and radio broadcasting in general. And I'm talking old school over the traditional airwaves now, most of us still listen to at times, broadcast radio in our cars especially is probably the time most of us would do it. Whether that's satellite radio, it's governed by the same rules, or actually over the airwaves, FM radio, the FCC really does strictly govern content that's broadcast live because anybody with the right device can have a battery operated device or plug in, put up an antenna, and you receive broadcast content. Same thing with television, although hardly anybody is really using an antenna anymore. But you could. It's usually cable or satellite, but the FCC does govern those things. There are actual rules, and if stations or broadcasters do not work in those rules, they can get fined and lose their license with the fcc. So there's a lot more specific consequences. And most people, when you think of explicit content or clean content, think of having show that doesn't have any profanity in it, which is a reasonable thought and assumption to have in the fcc. There's actually some hard and fast rules and there is actually an official List of the seven so called dirty words that you are not allowed to say on any broadcast, radio or television. And in fact, I'm going to date myself a little bit. But any of you that grew up in the 80s and 90s, and while originally in, you know, I would say New York or Washington, D.C. but even across the country, whoever listened to Howard Stern, or maybe you might have seen the movie that came out about the early part of his career called Howard Stern's Private Parts, there's actually a very good scene in this movie where the legal department at WNBC in New York has a sit down with Howard about these rules and what they are and what those dirty words are and what he's allowed to do and not allowed to do, according to the station. Of course, you know, Howard, immediately after that, he and his crew sort of break those rules, or I would say bend them, stretch them as much as they can and try to use some of those dirty words in a way that actually in context is allowed. It's a hilarious scene. And if you haven't seen that movie, I'd recommend you do it. In fact, in the blog post of this episode, I'm going to get a YouTube clip of that scene and put it in the blog post so you can go check it out there. Now, in the world of podcasting, as I said, there's no legal controlling authority and there is no list of words you cannot say. And in point of fact, as podcasters, independent podcasters, okay? Now, if you have a podcast that's being produced by a big corporation, you may be governed by a whole different set of rules, but the vast majority of you working with poditized and listening to this podcast are independent podcasters. And you have the right to say whatever you want. Podcasting is absolutely a safe haven of free speech. And I love podcasting specifically for that. But there actually are important guidelines. While there's no broad controlling authority over all podcasts, there are individual listening apps. And as independent podcasters, we could publish things on our own website, don't have to censor anything, mark anything as explicit or whatever you want. You could publish whatever you want on the Internet on your own website. But if you want your show to be available on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify and on iHeartRadio, each of these different apps, and there are more than two dozen listening apps out there and growing, there's always new ones. In fact, we just got some information in the last 24 hours, it was announced that TikTok has a new podcast app or Their app. You can now register your podcast distributed over TikTok. Now, I gotta tell you, that news is so new, I don't have a lot to tell you about that. But that's going to be an upcoming feature brand episode. As we dig into it and find it out, it's literally less than 24 hour old news that when I'm recording this and you're actually streaming this live to our community now. But my point is each different listening app makes their own rules, their own guidelines, some better than others. And of course, the most important one is Apple. Apple invented this industry. Apple, in our experience as a podcast company, as a hosting platform, anywhere between 50 to 90% of a podcast shows plays on our platform are still coming from Apple. And we distribute people to every listening app possible. And any listening app they want to be on, even if it's not one of the standard ones we would put it on. Your show can be on any and all listening apps. But Apple by far really makes the guidelines for the industry that everybody else really follows. And in fact, in researching for this episode to find out what the current guidelines are, I found that very much to be the case. Apple's really the only one that defines content guidelines. Somewhat specifically. I was about to say very specifically, but I stopped myself because there are no absolute, absolute rules. There's a lot of gray area. And here's where all of us podcasters really need to be aware of this, because we may think, oh, I don't use profanity in my show, so I don't have to mark my podcast as explicit. Well, I'm here to tell you, certainly if you have profanity in your episodes, you absolutely should mark your shows as explicit. But it's not just about swear words. It's just not about profanity. It's actually about much more than that. And it is a judgment call at the end of the day on the part of Apple, if they were to shut you down, if you don't mark your shows explicit and they think it should be, and then also it's on the part of the listener. Because the only way Apple's going to know about it or hear about it is if somebody complains that your episode or your show should have been marked explicit, but it was not, and there are consequences for that. So what I'm going to do right now, for those of you listening to the podcast, you're not going to see this, but you go to the blog post@podties.com and you will see an image and a Link to this. What I'm sharing right now on my screen for those on video is Apple podcasts content guidelines and they talk about what's really allowed and not allowed. And I'm going to go right to section 1.2 and this is a very short, this is literally one sentence, but there's a lot packed in it. It says explicit content. Creators must flag individual episodes with the explicit tag if they contain explicit content. So it hasn't defined explicit content yet, but it's about to. In parentheses here it says for example profanity, so that's pretty clear. Or content that may not be suitable for children. It's that last part that is the kicker that we all need to be aware of. And it is not further defined, I think intentionally so that Apple can go ahead and define that however they want. They reserve the right by the way to change these guidelines at any time. It's their app, their platform. Even if they want to change it and make decisions in a different way tomorrow they can do it. They can update that policy. And in fact the policy has so much wiggle room in it. What is a word that is profanity and what is one that's not? I bet they have a list of words and it grows. But in other context it's really more about is it suitable for children. Now that's certainly a judgment call, but I'm going to give you an example because the reason I decided to record this episode, share it with our community of podcast listeners and of course it's being shared first with potatoes. Customers live through our various ways that we bring them content every week in our client only coaching call. It caused me to look at this again as we have a customer who we produce episodes for that has what is a clean show or they want it to be a clean show. That means no profanity. But more importantly that means it's not marked as explicit, it is marked as clean. So my expectation as a parent is that I could play that episode on the speakers in the car and I'm not going to have any content not suitable for children. So that when I'm listening to it, I don't have my 8 year old asking me a question about what does this mean? And I have to explain it. That's an adult subject or topic. I'm going to give you a very direct example and share with you what happened. So we have this podcast we produce. It's called how to Buy a Home with David Sidoni. Wonderful show. It is targeting first time homebuyers Especially millennials and helping them move away from just paying rent to actually owning their own home and, and building equity and assets in their life, making them more financially healthy. Wonderful show, incredibly popular show. Does very, very well nationwide. I mean, it's a fantastic show and a model for local business person creating a podcast and blowing up their revenue and business using podcasting. So great example. Now, David's goal is to have a clean show. He doesn't want it marked explicitly. So as a policy, we had some guidelines. When we're editing his show, if there's profanity, we would bleep it out. But recently, you know, David had an episode where he felt like too much was bleeped out. And part of what he was doing is he's very talented in how he communicates. He's fun to listen to, and he injects humor into his show. And there was some humor that got lost because we bleeped out some content. You know, there are words that, you know, especially in sort of modern vernacular, slang, whatever you want to call it, you know, when something's really cool, someone would call it bitching. You know, we hear that a lot. And that is something that, you know, David would say, no, we're speaking freely. This is good content. I don't want that bleeped out. And that's fair. But then there was some other language that was used, and David said to me, an email, for example, the word pimp is not profanity. I don't want that bleeped out.

So here's what I'm going to share with all of you and what I shared with David. It's like, you know what? As podcast producers and even as a publishing platform, we're not going to censor you. We're not going to make requirements, we're not going to be your conscience as to even whether you mark your show as explicit or not. That decision is yours, and we're not going to get in the way of that. But I am going to provide you with all the information necessary so you can make your own decision. Ultimately, here's the risk, okay? And I'm a good example. I mean, I've got everywhere from an adult child down to child still in grade school. And if I'm listening to David's show in my car and the word pimp comes up, and my 8 year old in the backseat, along with her friend who's often in our car, who's also 8 years old, if one of them says to me, daddy, what's a pimp do? I really want to have to explain that to an 8 year old. I really don't. So if your show was marked explicit, I would have not listened to that show while I'm driving, you know, these two 8 year olds to their cheerleading practice. They are on a cheer team here in California. We have a lot of those things. You know, I'm not going to listen to it while they're in the car. I'll wait till they're out of the car. You know, that's what the explicit rating is for. It's meant to give me, the listener, often a parent, the option or the warning to say, hey, if you've got children, some of this content may not be appropriate for them and you really don't want to listen to it when they can hear it. But if I don't have that warning, if the show is marked as clean and then I feel it's inappropriate as a listener, I can reach out to Apple and say, hey, this show should be marked explicit. I had to explain this to my child. Whatever. I mean, who knows what someone would, right in their complaint. Apple has the absolute authority to take your show down until you either mark it explicit or, you know, bring your show into compliance with their guidelines. From their perspective, they have to think, okay, now this show is within compliance and then they can put your show back. Now each different listening app will make their own decision on that. And it's not like they talk to each other. They don't. Again, this would take a person, a listener who is unhappy that you didn't mark your show as explicit, to reach out to that listening app and say, hey, you've got a problem with your content here. You need to fix it. So that's the risk for your show. You might think, ah, chances that happen are very slim and they may be. But I sure would hate to see a podcaster have their show taken down for something like this just because they didn't mark their show as explicit or they want to have a clean show, but they left some things in there that are borderline, you know, that from one person's perspective could be deemed to be inappropriate for children and another person's perspective, they might say, no, it's perfectly appropriate. I don't care if a child hears that. So that's really the big difference. Now, interestingly, as I researched this and it's something. Even though I've been podcasting for 10 years and I've understood the explicit rating for a long time, what I believe to mean is pretty much in alignment with what it is today as I researched it. But I went to look at other apps, and I have to say, I was kind of shocked with how other apps are really not addressing this issue. They're really leaving it up to Apple in many ways. And there are a lot of listening apps that are what I would call Apple clones that you don't even register your show on. Once you're on Apple, you know, there's eight or 10 other apps that pick up your show and make it available on their app. So when we syndicate shows, we don't actually have to go register it on all those apps. We do it on 14 or 15 and then a whole bunch more pick it up. So everybody ends up on, you know, maybe two dozen ish apps. But there are others. Like I looked at Spotify, which is a very popular one, and I have to say, Spotify doesn't even address explicit content for the podcast creators. They only address it to the listeners. Their entire mention of it and writing of it is less about providing guidance to those that are publishing content. It's really all about covering their rear ends. To not use a word that might be questionable, to really try to tell the listeners that, hey, we're doing our best to stay on top of this, but don't hold us responsible for the content. We're trying to allow artists, creators to express themselves, and you need to be aware whether something is explicit or not. You know, as a listener, they're basically saying, hey, don't complain to me. We're doing the best we can as a platform. We're trying to provide you with guidelines to know whether you want to listen to something privately or semi publicly, you know, in your car or other environment or not. So they're taking a different approach, which to me is kind of a more of a defensive position in trying to avoid liability or complaints with people. And Google Podcasts, who has, you know, Google is a huge, huge company. And what I realized is, you know, even though Google Podcasts has their own listening app, well, they really showed me in my research that how little podcasts matter to them because they are this huge company dealing with search content of the entire world's accumulated knowledge. And podcasts is one small drop in that bucket for them, maybe one small drop in an ocean for them. And they really talk about their policies, but it's really all built around search. And they mention podcasts, but it's really. They have all sorts of recommended policies for podcasts, is what they say. Google Podcasts recommended policies, but they don't define explicit content at all. So they're really leaving that up to Apple, the big guys who invented podcasting. And I believe the whole industry is still following Apple. So my recommendation for all of you podcasters out there, whether you're starting a new one or you already have one out, is to use your own common sense and make a decision that you can live with. You know, depends on your sort of level of risk that you're willing to take that. How likely do you think it is someone's going to be listening to your podcast in an environment where there may be children that would hear it or hear parts of it? And is the content of your show truly clean, meaning it's appropriate for children? Not only does it not contain profanity, but it doesn't contain mature subjects that children, you know, parents would not want children to be hearing. And if it passes that test, then mark your whole show as clean. Or to put it another way, not explicit.

However, if your show really in a regular basis does contain mature subjects or profanity, all you gotta do is mark it as explicit, and that's it. As long as you mark it as explicit, you're fine. And in our research, marking shows explicit does not reduce the number of people that are going to listen to your show. It really has no impact on that statistically, from our experience. But let's say in general, you have a clean show. But you know what, you've got an episode once a year, once a quarter, that has a mature subject. Well, in case you didn't know, you can, with most hosting platforms, certainly on potatoes, you can mark a single episode as explicit within, otherwise a clean show. So all of your different, vast majority of episodes can be clean. You've got a mature subject, you mark that episode as explicit, and that's enough. That's in compliance. If somebody complains to Apple about it, they're going to say, well, but this show, this episode is marked as explicit. You should not have played this in your car. That's on you, listener. It's not on us, nor is it on the content creator. That's the mechanism that's in place to do this for good or bad, like it or don't like it. You know, you can argue that it's not a great standard, and I think that's a fair criticism because there's a lot of wiggle room in it. So that's why I say use your common sense. Make a decision about your own show, then decide to mark it as explicit or not, and, you know, as appropriate as you think it should be and then live with that decision. I'm sure most of you will make a decision that is in alignment with what Apple would think when, if they were to get a complaint or look at your show and evaluate it. Not that they really evaluate shows for this specifically, but that's really it. You know, make your own decision. Make sure you can live with it. We are not going to be your conscience. I think most hosting platforms are not when it comes to production. Obviously we're going to follow the guidelines of our client and how they want those shows to be edited. Whether they want us to remove profanity, like cut it out in the editing process or leave it in and bleep it out, or just make it silent. I mean, there's several different ways we handle that when we produce episodes. And if you're editing your own episodes, you can make your own decision on what works for you there. But remember, bleeping out words doesn't necessarily sanitize an episode from a discussion that's not appropriate from children. I guess that's maybe the biggest message I want to share with you today. This is less about a discussion of words, good and bad, appropriate or not. It's more words are a part of it, but it's a broader evaluation that happens whether a show is appropriate for children to listen to it or not. All right, so that's it. That's what I want to share with you today. I hope you find it valuable. I will have the link for some of these different policies that I referred to. Apple, Spotify, Google, in the important links at the blog post for this episode on potatoes.com so you know, if you're listening to this podcast or watching this video, you can go there and get those references and read them for yourself and check them out. All right, thanks for listening, everybody. Be back next time with another great episode I hope you'll enjoy. Until then, this is Tom signing off for feed.

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