Iain Welsh

Hell yeah, brother. Let's go! 1. To start, are you comparing our 2 minutes of commercials per 60 minutes of content policy to the PGA Tour's 18 minute policy? 2. Do you actually think we believe there should be ZERO commercials in professional golf? 3. Do you actually think we would complain about commercial load in golf if it looked like ours? 4. Our ads are skippable on every platform you listen or watch on. Can I do that watching live golf? 5. Should we have run the ad while he was in the middle of telling a story? 6. They aren't the same ads we see every single week on the PGA Tour. Agreed? 7. Every year we survey our audience with regard to the commercial volume in our content. 95% of respondents said they do not find our advertising to be obtrusive. What do NBC's survey results say? We ran a poll on Twitter during the Open this past year. You guys got a 13.9% approval rating. Do you find that satisfactory? I would find that very concerning if my goal was to create a quality product. Will there be a change in NBC's policy this year to reflect this very strong feedback from its viewers? 8. Every year we turn down many additional advertising opportunities because it's antithetical to our directive to be a voice of the fan. We're proud of the fact that our advertising volume is WELL below what you would find in other top 50 rated sports podcasts. Did you consider this at all before posting? 9. In response to this, a large amount of our listeners sign up for our membership platform to support the show. They get some bonus content, some merch discounts, access to a message board, etc. On top of all of the issues we get with live golf on NBC an Golf Channel, now viewers have to PAY for Peacock AND get ads on top of it! And this is not just for bonus coverage. There is actual major championship golf that is only viewable on that side of the paywall. Do you understand how golf fans see this as a giant middle finger? 10. The comp to our show is not live golf. A much better one would be your "Live From" show, which we greatly enjoy and have made quite clear over the years. Never have we criticized the commercial volume on that show (it's high, but not egregious) because it is an "opt-in" show. If I find the commercial inventory to be too obtrusive, I'll just find another golf show to watch or listen to. NBC/GC/CBS hold the viewers hostage because there is no other way to watch live PGA Tour golf. If there was, there's no way your network would air the volume of commercials it does, because you'd be beaten by the competition. The PGA Tour has made it very clear that they've put their own short term commercial interests ahead of any consideration of harm to the actual product. And now you're asking golf fans to be more sympathetic to the shareholders of Comcast than their own time and interests in the sport of golf. Does that sound as ridiculous to you as it does to me? 11. It isn't your fault that Comcast has overpaid for live golf and has to run an ungodly amount of commercials to try to make up for it. But don't piss on the viewers and tell us it's raining. What happened at the Ryder Cup was nothing short of a disgrace. The pro golf model is broken if this is the best that can be done. 12. What you're implying in all of this is that there is no such thing as a healthy balance of ads and content. This is wildly untrue, and without any semblance of a doubt, the PGA Tour is on the wrong side of this balance. It is very difficult to even begin to have a serious discussion about how to piece the golf world back together if you're going to be this disingenuous about how our brand treats it's listeners compared to how Comcast/NBC/GC/PGA Tour treats theirs. Thanks for watching the Trevino pod. Among all of those stories he told, it's wild that the humorous part you found worthy of commenting on was the ONE ad break (which also happens to be the most replayed part of the video.)