Midroll

A midroll is an advertising message inserted partway through a listen, as opposed to the pre-roll (before the content) and the post-roll (after it). In traditional podcasting it is the best-valued format: a listener who reaches the middle of an episode is an engaged listener, and advertisers pay for that proven attention.

The paragraph boundary, or the format's one condition

Applied to audio articles, midroll carries a constraint podcasting rarely faces to the same degree: an article is a constructed text, and cutting a sentence in half to fit a spot is editorially unacceptable. The break has to land on a natural boundary of the text, the end of a paragraph, ideally between two sections of the piece.

This is where audio generated from text holds a structural advantage over recorded audio: the exact position of every sentence and paragraph within the audio file is known, thanks to word-level timestamps. Insertion can therefore target the paragraph end closest to the middle of the article, rather than an arbitrary marker like fifty percent of the file, which would land anywhere, including mid-sentence.

When to use it

Midroll only makes sense on long enough content. A ninety-second news brief has no middle: pre-roll is enough. On a long read, an investigation or a multi-minute feature, midroll adds a slot without lengthening the entry tunnel, and it reaches precisely the most engaged listeners.

The discipline is the same as for all audio advertising: short spots, a clear separation between content and ads, restrained frequency. A listener who accepted a pre-roll will tolerate one clean break in the middle of an article; they will not tolerate two. The audio advertising feature can restrict midrolls to articles above a duration threshold, which protects the listening experience on short formats.