The Halloween special Night Tales… dang what a curveball. Loved the narrator, loved the story, still trying to figure out if any of it was real, listened to it twice before I realized the ads were written in as well lol… very clever!

You have interesting stories but I can’t possibly listen when literally every sentence ends on the same tone. If this isn’t AI, please take some vocal classes.

You can tell the cadence of the sentences and the intonations at the end of every line. I couldn’t actually take in the subject matter because of the weird cadence and voice inflections

I love the idea for the content but it’s like listening to fingernails on the chalkboard to hear the narrators inflection go up after EVERY sentence! I love listening to Tim Hartford and if you can coach this other narrator to speak better, I’ll give it another listen.

The title says it all. It’s unlistenable.

The narrative with AI inflections and no nuance is as bad as it gets

I wanted to love this podcast, but the narrator/host needs a voice coach. Listening to him read is too jarring and distracting. He has the same voice inflections in every sentence, at every comma, at every period. It is like listening to someone read in monotone in that it’s one set of tones in every sentence. We need to bring back recitation class in school, so intelligent people don’t fall into this vocal trap. Otherwise, I’m sure it’s a fun podcast. But listening feels like nails on a chalkboard to me. 🥺

Unable to listen to.

Unlistenable, when compared to the hushed and soothing tones of the actual human Richard McLean Smith which I loved. The constant upward inflection is deeply unnatural.

I gave it a try because an episode dropped into my Cautionary Tales feed, but quit at the ad break about 15 minutes in. The narrator’s mechanical voice is too distracting from his words. I should have stopped near the beginning as soon as he announced his name as “Richard MacLean [very, very long pause] Smith.” I went back and replayed it because I thought I’d misheard. Nope. Who says their own name that way?

Makes it unlistenable

Unlistenable

Sir, I can tell that you know how to pull together a good story, but respectfully, your narration style could use a certain amount of work. I find the way your sentences are vocally pitched to be plenty strange, and you seem to have an abhorrence of conclusive, down intonations. A good coach could help you vary your pitch to avoid the monotony that characterizes your style now, which makes every sentence sound almost exactly the same. Until then, no matter how valuable the story, I can’t listen to you. Also please consider sprinkling in a bit of music and some sound design. Even the best narrators would struggle to carry nearly a half hour of content without any supporting soundscape. Good luck with it all.

I really wanted to like this, but I could NOT get past the weird, repetitive vocal inflection. Like a bad spoken word poetry presentation at a college open mic night.

Do you have to go up at the end of every sentence and inject zero life into the intonation and cadence you use? I want to listen but I feel like it’s impossible. Your voice is the equivalent of mid grey paint. Unlistenable

Interesting topics, but the narration is completely monotone except at the end of every sentence where his voice does a little upward inflection. Makes it unlistenable. Until that’s fixed, I’m out.

Sounds like AI robot. Interesting concept but the reader is awful. Might be good to listen to when trying to get to sleep.💤

Yeah that weird constant upward inflection is jarring. And two ad breaks in the first 15 minutes? Nah man unlistenable.

The subject matter is very interesting but the narration of this podcast makes it unbearable. The narrator repetitive cadence and upward inflection make it impossible to focus on what he’s saying.

May others forever be soothed to sleep with your calming voice and wild stories just as I am. You’re on bedtime duty.

Wanted to like this podcast but the mechanical AI narration is too distracting. Please ditch the AI.

This was such an amazing podcast! Now with the frequency and abundance of ads, it’s unlistenable. Certainly can no longer use this as a sleeping pod.

I used to love Unexplained, people complained about the narration and the tone of the narrator but I always thought it added an eerie element to the episodes. I understand that money has to be made but the amount of ads in the show made the episodes unbearable to listen to. It’s less about the ads itself and more about the flow of the ads. You can put ads at the start, middle and close to the end of the show but when you get ads after every 7 minutes of listening it becomes more and more annoying to get through. Please for the sake of the real fans who enjoy this show don’t ruin it. We already have so much stuff ruined nowadays due to greed, please don’t let this one of them. Mahalo.

It used to love this podcast. I know they need to have some ads, but having several 3 and 4 minute annoying ad breaks makes for very little podcast remaining.

Love the content but the narration is so odd. Everything ends with an upward inflection. Makes it impossible to enjoy.

I can’t sleep without this fella talking..!!! Thank you stories are great too I gotta relisten often but I’ll tell ya this guys voice knocks me out within 15 min or less !!! Sometimes 7-10 min out cold gotta set the cast shut off for end of video so it doesn’t keep playing !! Thx mane good chicken !! ;)🍗.

Used to love the content. Now they say nothing over 30 minutes with about 20 minutes of awful prescription ads. Boo. Such a disappointment.

Interesting stories, well written, and great atmosphere. Creator throws in some eye rolling wokeness here and there

I really enjoy Unexplained and I’ve been listening for a long time! I don’t know if it’s I Heart Radio or what, but there are way too many ads now. Skipping thru 3 1/2 minutes at the beginning and several times throughout a 30ish minute podcast seems….excessive.

Feels empty.

There are so many ads! It has made the show unlistenable. They are frequent, loud, and intrusive. It might be time to unfollow.

If the guy is going for some signature sound to make a name for himself, it’s a big fail. Kids, here is a lesson on how NOT to narrate your podcast.

I used to like this show and have listened to it for a while, but it has turned into an unbearable bombardment of ads. Unfollowing.

Every sentence ends on an UP note. I don’t get it. Can’t focus on the content.

The ad’s have ruined the show. They are frequent, loud, noisy and distract from the tone of the show. Finally unfollowing.

Same as many others… The vocal inflections/monotone narration makes it impossible to pay attention to the story.

The cadence of his voice and emphasis of the last word of each sentence was so irritating that I had to stop listening.

I t would be nice to filter these in sequential oder

The vocal modulation of the narrator is frustrating—he emphasizes the wrong words and swallows whole the operative words in every sentence. I realize this is his show and creation—but he should step down from narration and get someone more professional. The ads are just obnoxious—disrupting the podcast midway through is just ridiculous. They are bad enough at the beginning in that they go on forever—also the sound engineering in the recording quality between the podcast vs ads is just jarring! It’s getting harder to listen to this podcast.

The stories would be so good if I could actually tolerate listening to them, but the narrator has such a weird cadence and inflection that I can't actually focus on the story. It could probably be great, but I don't know what it is with podcasters doing weird middle school theater monologue things.

Been listening for a long time now and love the stories and how it’s told but the Ads are too much. Feels like I get 5 minutes of story with 10 minutes of ads. First and last 5 minutes is ads plus more in between pauses. I understand the love of money but it’s hard to listen to, especially when trying to relax and pay attention than BAM, really loud ads.

Awesome episode

I really enjoy the actual podcasts but the ads are loud and actually jarring when you are relaxing listening to the smooth podcasting voice. Can you just turn down the volume on ads? Or turn up the volume on the podcast?

I am a day 1 listener, I used to really love this show, full of information, easy listen, & beautiful ambiance. However that all changed when commercials and ads overthrew actual content. I would love to continue this subscription but i cannot in good faith pay for re-runs and ads. Just another case where the need for money ruining a good thing.

I know ads are a necessary evil, but when I want to listen to something intriguing at bedtime, every time a big block of ads comes on, it totally blows me out of the story.

Have listened for a long time but the ads have gotten out of hand. 11 minutes of ads with 31 minutes of actual podcast.

I still listen but please lower the quantity of ads. It ruins the show’s tempo and makes for a poorer experience for listeners.

This is my favorite podcast to listen to at bedtime. I absolutely love the tone of his voice telling great stories. Can’t wait for the next episode!

I used to love this podcast and found the content very compelling and engaging. Unfortunately Iheartpodcasts greed is showing with the 4-5 ads per break and it completely ruins the mood. Cannot recommend this anymore until they calm down with the excessive adverts.

There are more minutes of ads than show. And they are all the same ads repeated over and over most of the time. And Smith pauses constantly for even more ad opportunities seemingly each week. I unfollowed and stopped listening.