An update on our new podcast feeds

Hi everyone, we wanted to update you on what’s going on with our podcast feeds for those of you who link them up to your podcast apps either by RSS feed or through connecting with Spotify. 

Since before we teamed up with Patreon we’ve been asking if they would have the functionality to allow for customisable feeds. We do a lot of different shows at The Race and we know that not everybody will want to listen to every show, so just having one ‘Members’ feed that gives you everything isn’t right for everyone. Many of you asked for this as well when joining us here, which we kept passing on to Patreon. 

The good news is they finally added that functionality last week, giving us early access to the feature. 

The not-so-good news is that its implementation hasn’t been as smooth as we would have liked. We were hoping that we could set up the feeds immediately (which we did - see above) and they would all become available instantly, so we could then make an announcement which included instructions on how to add the feeds you wanted to have on your podcast app. 

Unfortunately this didn’t happen, and many of the feeds were very slow to appear in public, while the episodes we added to them were being removed from the main feed everyone already had access to. We understand that this has caused days of confusion and frustration, and we’ve been working hard to resolve it. 

We were also told that our original ‘everything’ feed, labelled as ‘The Race Members’ Club’, would automatically morph into what is now called a ‘Combined feed’. As far as we can tell this has happened on the RSS side of things, but that feed is unavailable, or not working properly, for those hooking their feeds up to Spotify. 

WHAT TO DO NOW 

If you are linking up to a podcast app via RSS, you can find all the new RSS feeds for each show either by tapping the three dots in the top right of our homepage on the Patreon app, or if you are viewing via web browser on a computer, you can tap the podcasts icon that sits underneath our logo. 

This should give you access to all the feeds you can choose from, and you can customise your experience. And the original RSS feed you added previously should become what's now known as a 'Combined feed'.

If you are using Spotify, it is our understanding that all of the feeds except the ‘Combined feed’ are working and updating properly. So you can add those via the three dots in the top right on the app, or by going via the Spotify logo underneath The Race logo on a computer web browser. You’ll get all the ad-free shows and bonus content associated with each one. 

For example, all bonus F1 content (such as F1 Extra, F1 Book Club, Driver Rankings Q&As) will all appear in ‘The Race F1 Podcast’ feed. The same applies for all bonus MotoGP content in the MotoGP podcast feed, and all Bring Back V10s bonuses in that feed, etc. 

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT (and how you can help!)

We really appreciate everyone’s patience over this, and we’re sorry the move to what should be a better system hasn’t been smoother. We are in discussion with Patreon over what's going on, and we’ll communicate any updates as soon as we can. 

We know that not everybody is encountering the same bugs, which is an added complication, but sharing your feedback and personal experience of what’s going on is really useful to us as we help Patreon troubleshoot this. So please keep that feedback coming - and let us know which devices and apps you are using if you are having trouble. 

When we have any more major updates for you we will share them in another post like this. Until then, we’ll share smaller updates in ‘The Race Members’ Club’ community chat, which everyone should have access to. You can also respond to us with updates on your own experience in those chats as well. 

Again, sorry the introduction of this much-requested feature hasn’t been more straightforward. Unfortunately the issues we are experiencing around it are out of our hands, so we’re just trying to do the best we can to help get them fixed. Thank you for your input in helping that process along!