
BBC podcasts on third-party apps - open-source-ux
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/d68712d7-bd24-440f-94a0-1c6a4cdee71a
======
Traster
This is hilarious. Google is trying to leverage it's search & mobile OS market
positions into pushing people towards its podcast app. Unfortunately for
Google it has come up against one of the few entities in the world that can
just turn around and say "Fuck. That."

Frankly, I think this is a monopolist tactic from Google and it should result
in government investigations but I have no hope that will happen. Nice to know
people like the BBC have the balls to say no to this though.

~~~
Theodores
Actually there is a problem with the BBC.

In the UK how do you compete for news eyeballs and try and make it pay when
the BBC news is for free?

Imagine your business is weather forecasting, the same applies.

Then there is the small matter of the license fee. Most people just pay it out
of fear of being caught by one of the legendary detector vans. But you can't
have a TV or a monitor that also does TV without being hassled for the rest of
your days.

It is getting that way online. I only listen to the BBC on DAB radio, if I
sign in to their player thing I know I can't trust myself not to watch some
lame series on iPlayer meaning I will have to pay up.

The BBC has an important propaganda role in informing the national
conversation and keeping British people British. I am not saying that
cynically, that is what the voice of empire is there for. They aren't trying
to sell you product, it is more subtle than that, essentially propaganda
though, controlling the latitude of available thinking.

They need to be more careful about closing down their reach as people like me
go off-piste and start listening to stuff that would never make it onto the
BBC. Once you have done that and realise the world thinks differently to the
allowed BBC viewpoints there is no going back.

I don't see this as the BBC standing up to the monopolistic evil Google, I
also think the BBC are not whiter than white.

~~~
AJRF
Hassled for the rest of your days is a bit much. You email, send them a letter
or call them or I think there is actually a website that you can register on
which remove's them questioning you needing the license or not. I did it and
i've not heard from them since. Not exactly rocket science.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>You email, send them a letter or call them or I think there is actually a
website that you can register on which remove's them questioning you needing
the license or not. //

They used to send a postage paid envelope, and you could return their "you're
a criminal" letter indicating that in fact their supposition was incorrect.

Now, they don't include an envelope IIRC, certainly not postage, so you have
to pay [a small amount] every time they decide to accuse you falsely of being
a criminal. I'm against that in principle.

So, I thought, I'll waste my own time and go online and fill out the form ...
except they demand additional PII from you. Which I'm not happy about giving
to Capita, and shouldn't need to, name and address should be sufficient for
the legal purposes here.

Thus, we're left waiting for them to make the next move. Which they did, they
sent someone around: I stated we didn't watch broadcast TV and don't need a
license. They went away.

So, that's the end of it, right?

Nope, they sent two people the next time, who asked for my wife (clue: license
fee is payable against premises), didn't show ID, nor identify themselves in
any way. When asked they said they "needed to come in" to check we didn't have
a TV, they have no need to and no legal right of access [without a warrant].
When I made the same statement as before "we don't need a license ..., not
using your services" they threatened "we'll just keep coming".

Great huh.

What really grates with me is that you have to register your details to even
use the services on iPlayer now, so they would see clearly at the BBC end that
we've stopped using their service.

So, they presumably will continue to waste money until we get an injunction
against them for hassling us.

------
lbacaj
Technically speaking the way Podcasts work is a fascinating thing.

Most on HN May be familiar with this already but Podcasts are completely open
and a creator simply publishes an RSS that they then provide to a podcast App
such as iTunes so it can appear on the Apple podcast app. In exchange most of
these podcast apps share any listen counts and analytics with the owner of the
Podcast. However, almost always the files are hosted by the owner so the plays
could also likely be counted that way. Even the artwork and everything is
provided with this RSS that is completely open.

More and more platforms are popping up creating “exclusive” podcasts and
trying to close the ecosystem down. Not sure if that’s what is happening here,
it’s unclear from the article, but just think Podcasts are one of those last
few technically open things on the internet and that’s great.

They are so open in fact I was planning on adding them to my audio App I’ve
been building which lets people listen to any article right now. The more this
closes up the less of an opportunity for people to create useful things and
for people to find new ways to stay informed.

As a shameless self promotion if your interested in having articles read to
you on the go try my app [https://articulu.com](https://articulu.com)

~~~
simias
Admittedly I don't consume a massive amount of podcasts but I don't have a
problem with this move towards a more closed platform. If people want to make
money from their work as podcasters they basically have three possibilities:
beg for donations, ad tons of ads before, after and often in the middle of the
podcasts or move to a subscription model (which means the podcast is no longer
available for free).

Since I vehemently despise ads I have no issues with the subscription model as
long as it remains convenient to play the audio any way I feel like (i.e. no
intrusive DRM).

So I actually think that's a good evolution overall, I wish more of the
internet moved away from ads and towards other monetization models.

For your audio app I suppose that it'll mean that you'll have to strike a deal
with the podcast platforms to share some of the revenue or figure out an API
to let people use their license keys on third party players. I understand that
it's annoying but that sounds perfectly fair to me.

~~~
djhworld
I subscribe to Giant Bomb (a video games website) and they have a premium tier
for content.

The podcasts are available for free, but funded by ads, or you can subscribe
to the premium feed where the ads are edited out.

~~~
mikewhy
Ah good old videogames.com.

Yeah premium podcasts are already a thing. There's no need to "figure out an
API to let people use their license keys on third party players", it's simply
HTTP Basic authentication embedded in the URL. Should work just about
anywhere.

~~~
ascagnel_
I'm also a premium subscriber; while they used to use basic HTTP auth, they've
since switched to generating revocable, per-user keys. It's both better for
security and easier for podcast clients to manage.

~~~
voxadam
By "revocable, per-user keys" do you mean each user is given a unique URL to
download premium content from or is some type of cryptographic DRM being
leveraged?

~~~
foobarandgrill
I'd imagine it's a token in the request headers

~~~
__david__
I doubt it's request headers since that would require the podcast player to
set them. Putting it in the URL itself would make it work with every player on
the planet.

------
dalbasal
While Google & FB gobbled up the juiciest chunks of online media, podcasts
have somehow remained one or of the freeiest media, imo working like the open
web was supposed to.

Ooh, it's kind of surprising. Discovery is still clunky. Getting from website
to subscribed can be clunky. It's not interactive or conversational.
Advertising is tricky. Podcasters generally have to negotiate deals
separately. There are no clicks and podcasters can't really do the ad
targeting that makes most online ads valuable. There isn't a deep analysis of
pauses and abandons, like in google.

OTOH, there are no content policies. No "demonetization." No spying on
consumers. No clickbait. No seo... and for the most part no rulers.

Even the clunkiness of discovery is half-feature. You ask friends what they
listen to, and that mode of slow-and steady distribution makes for better
incentives.

Meanwhile, Google and the like look at podcasts and see a piece of unclaimed
territory like late stage empires and an island that wasn't worth bothering
with 100 years previously.

~~~
random878
I agree completely. I'm a big podcast fan, for many opposite reasons I don't
use social media.

Podcasts remind me of fanzines. Which is a great thing.

------
exabrial
Google Podcasts won't let you add or remove podcasts subscriptions unless you
turn on location and web history tracking on your account.

~~~
raxxorrax
Really? That would be disqualifying properties for me personally. What
advantage does their service offer?

~~~
maxwellito
So far, none. Google podcast is pretty basic (feature-wise) to be honest. But
being forced to give access to location and web history was a big turn off to
me. However I found PodByte on the PlayStore that fit my small podcast needs
without giving away all my personal data.

------
Jsharm
I don't know why BBC pushes it's sounds app so hard. I get nagged to use it
every time I listen through Alexa too. There's no BBC sounds smart speaker so
why do they care? What do they gain from me using the app?

~~~
eddieroger
Because when you use their ecosystem, they get user data. They acknowledge
that in their blog post:

> We also want to make our programmes and services as good as they can
> possibly be - this means us getting hold of meaningful audience data.

They claim it's because they're a public service and need to know what the
public want, but there are other ways, and I'm torn on if it's a legit case or
not. NPR has been trying to up use of NPR One for what I assume are similar
reasons, but haven't gone the way of shutting out listening sources yet.
Instead, they propose a standards [0] to do it from the listeners, and it's
showing no signs of success.

0\. [https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-
extra/2018/12/11/675250553/...](https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-
extra/2018/12/11/675250553/remote-audio-data-is-here)

~~~
driverdan
Which is a lie. Podcasts are played directly from the source, meaning they
have the stats already. The only thing they may not know are subscription
rates.

~~~
kwhitefoot
I use Podcast Addict on my Moto and gpodder on Linux. In both cases I have a
massive subscription list that downloads episodes daily. The server that
supplies them knows only that I downloaded it, not whether or not I actually
listened or that I listened to a few minutes and then abandoned the episode.

The purpose is to have a wide variety of material to listen to in my car (via
Bluetooth) in which I do not have a data connection.

~~~
pessimizer
So probably volume of downloads is an excellent, but somewhat ambiguous
indicator of audience. Unless you continue to download podcasts that you
listen to for a few minutes then abandon - but that would probably make you as
much of an outlier as someone who downloads once, but copies the episode for
someone else.

------
monkeynotes
While I understand the objections to Google self promoting their products and
masking audience data I don't see how removing their podcasts from one of the
most popular platforms helps with what the BBC claims to be important.

"What we think is important is pretty simple. We want people to have easy
access to the wide range of BBC programmes, not just a select few, and be able
to discover and listen to new ones really easily."

Cutting off your audience potential to understand your audience better is some
kind of broken logic. The comments section highlights that their own audience
generally does not accept their reasoning.

~~~
moonstick
Wasn't this in the article - searches for BBC content is going to Google not
the BBC. If they remove content from google, searches will go to BBC where
they can display more than the limited range Google show.

~~~
monkeynotes
Then I think they misunderstand how some of their audience uses technology. I
search for podcasts in my app of choice (which happens to be google's
product). And even if I didn't I am not going to start using another app, that
I don't like as much, just to listen to a BBC podcast.

------
jamescridland
[https://podnews.net/article/bbc-blocks-
google](https://podnews.net/article/bbc-blocks-google) has more on this.

~~~
dgellow
From this article:

> Talking to Podnews, a BBC spokesperson said that Google is required to sign
> a licence to link to their podcasts; and that the Distribution Policy also
> requires Google to supply user data to the BBC. There has been a
> “consultation with Google”, and the BBC “has no choice but to stop Google
> from making podcasts available via Google products.”

> However, Ofcom, the UK media regulator, requires that “the BBC must offer
> the public services to third parties in response to reasonable requests for
> supply, except where the BBC has an objective justification for not doing
> so. In offering the public services for supply, and in supplying those
> services, the BBC must act on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory
> basis.” (¶3.3.2).

> In recent months, the BBC have been removing some of its podcasts from
> third-party platforms, and placing them exclusively within their BBC Sounds
> app. BBC podcasts are supported by advertising outside the UK, though BBC
> Sounds remains unavailable to non-UK listeners.

------
calewis
Having worked at the BBC several times it’s yet again insular thinking. In
short, they’ve spend a load of (wasted cash) on a proprietary app that is
useless, but some “strategy” dork - who’s never actually built anything -
thinks he can get Google to change. Good luck with that.

~~~
newaccoutnas
The thing is, generally, they iterate quickly and it becomes less crappy over
time. This has happened with lots of their products. Everytime the News
frontpage got changed everyone lost their shit, however if you look back now
at the older designs you see it was a falacy holding on to them. I'm not
saying Sounds is perfect (there's been some vitriol), but it wouldn't be out
of the ordinary if it improved based on feedback.

(Also an ex-beeb employee)

~~~
calewis
BBC news is separate division and has a strong leader (like sport). BBC design
is obsessed with making everything look the same, it’s been going bland for
years. BBC3 was another missed opportunity like this one. The walled gardens
have already been built.

------
TheBeardKing
I tried a few podcast searches through Google chrome desktop and Android and I
don't really see what the big deal is. The first search result link is the
podcast website, and the top few buttons integrated into the results page are
just listing episodes and series and such, the same way done for movies,
books, etc.

~~~
astura
In fact, it's what Apple doesn't as well

[https://podnews.net/article/bbc-blocks-
google](https://podnews.net/article/bbc-blocks-google)

So why are they calling out Google specifically? And what results would they
prefer?

~~~
ar0
Their comparison to and discussion of the iPhone behaviour seems to be quite
disingenuous to me: The iPhone search searches websites and your phone. Apps
that you have installed on your phone can register to provide search results.

If you don't have Apple Podcasts installed, you won't get any search results
for "Apple Podcasts" (I tested this). And if you have another podcast player
installed that supports iPhone-wide search (e.g. Overcast), you will get
search results from that other podcast player.

This seems to me to be quite different from the Google search, which (from
what I understand from the articles) _always_ seems to link to Google Podcasts
if you are using it on Android.

~~~
astura
I never installed Google Podcasts on my Android device. I just tried searching
for BBC Podcasts on my Android and I didn't even get a link to play anything
on Google Podcasts. My results were mainly Wikipedia pages and the homepages
of the podcasts themselves on bbc.co.uk, and even BBC's Sounds website, which
they claim Google is hiding.

[https://imgur.com/oiFQLXj](https://imgur.com/oiFQLXj)

[https://imgur.com/UbacU32](https://imgur.com/UbacU32)

------
Angostura
I listen to all the BBCs podcasts through the Apple Podcasts app. Is there
something that stops the Beeb getting meaningful statistics when it it is
played via Google, but allow it to get those statistics when played via
Podcasts.app

I find this story quite confusing.

~~~
sjwright
Apple’s podcast app may have a fancy storefront for discovery but is
fundamentally just a normal, not special at all RSS based podcast playing app
that works exactly as podcasts were intended to.

Google have smooshed their player into google web search results so that you
will probably visit Google’s podcast player instead of going to the content
producer’s website.

Apple: normal podcast player app.

Google: abusing their search monopoly.

------
fearhugs
A lot of the comments on the page address the fact that the BBC sounds app
isn't available outside the UK so switching isn't an option. That seems like a
pretty serious oversight...

------
nickcw
Ah, that explains why I had a complaint from the wife that she wasn't getting
new Archers episodes.

(The Archers is a long running (since 1951!) BBC Radio 4 soap opera about a
fictional farming community. There are a lot of people addicted to this,
including the wife.)

I had to avert this disaster as a wife with no Archers isn't worth
contemplating, so I installed the BBC sounds app instead. It was my thought
that the BBC pulled the content from google to get people using the BBC Sounds
app instead.

The BBC Sounds app works, but it is a pretty terrible podcast app (2.2/5 stars
on the Google Play store), it doesn't download and queue things, or let you
order them etc.

~~~
afandian
I've not installed it becuase they ask for my email address and post code to
sign up. Why? They don't need it. If I'm listening from Europe BBC Sounds just
works, so it's not a technical limitation.

And the "Why do I need to sign in?" page is evasive. Why is it compulsory?
What are they hiding?

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/how-to-guides/sign-
in/acc...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/how-to-guides/sign-in/account-
signin)

And this "Why" page doesn't even make an effort.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/why-we-are-asking-you-
to-s...](https://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/why-we-are-asking-you-to-sign-in)

I don't think there's some secret conspiracy. I am a great supporter of the
BBC.

But the way "TV Licensing" behaves (operated by a Capita) is so breathtakingly
and openly dishonest and opaque, there is no trust left.

------
Jonnax
What's going on exactly? I subscribe to a few BBC podcasts on a podcast app
via RSS.

Is that going?

~~~
djhworld
Some podcasts are exclusive to BBC sounds for a time limited period.

~~~
isostatic
> BBC sounds

A new program being forced down listeners ears

[https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/20/bbc-sounds-
app...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/20/bbc-sounds-app-angry-
listeners-complaints)

.... One typically indignant fan, Nigel Metheringham, tweeted: “Bring back
(the podcast) #Fortunately to an open feed, rather than using it to prop up a
shoddy service.”

The loss of this favourite podcast to anyone who downloads from other sites,
such as iTunes, or for listeners living abroad, has now exposed much wider
dissatisfaction with BBC Sounds, which is receiving low scores on app-rating
sites. Criticism focuses on the lack of a sleep-timer function for Android
devices, a failure to reliably display track names, the difficulty of sharing
content, on claims the search function is ineffective, and on the limited menu
of content from other podcast providers.

....

------
teh_klev
Nice to see the beeb telling Google to "get in the sea". On a tangential, but
not unrelated note, I'm kinda frustrated with the way podcasts are
increasingly being distributed these days. So many sites push their content
out to the likes of Stitcher or iTunes or some other third party service that
try and force you to use an app or their crappy website. In many cases the
option to download just the raw MP3 has quietly disappeared.

Just let me download the fricken MP3, I don't need some stupid ad plagued
spyware to listen to a podcast. I realise sometimes this can be about
monetising your content to help pay for production costs. But you know what?
I'm happy to pay, and already do to some folks via Patreon/Paypal etc. Just
don't force me to jump through hoops to eventually locate the raw MP3 that I
can listen to on my own terms.

------
afandian
I use [https://antennapod.org/](https://antennapod.org/) . It's excellent,
open source and works with BBC Podcasts (for now).

If Android users can't choose independent software to listen to podcasts
that's too bad.

(It uses the iTunes database apparently)

------
kj4ips
I'm somewhat unsure what they actually changed, I'm really hoping they didn't
just abandon the RSS feeds.

As of 9:20 Eastern, I don't yet see the second release of BBC global news that
I would expect to see for yesterday, which does not bode well.

If you take away RSS, it's not even a podcast anymore.

~~~
astura
According to various news sources they just changed robots.txt. I can't
confirm that myself right now.

[https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282436/bbc-podcasts-
goo...](https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282436/bbc-podcasts-google-
assistant-home-block)

EDIT: Here's the robots.txt file:

[https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/robots.txt?utm_source=podn...](https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/robots.txt?utm_source=podnews.net&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=podnews.net:2019-03-25)

------
elagost
Anything that isn't an RSS feed that serves MP3s, and therefore can't be
synced to an offline media player, isn't a "podcast", and shouldn't be called
such. If they can just remove their show feed from Google's program, then it's
probably not an open/standardized RSS feed, and Google's program probably
isn't a podcast program as we know it.

Podcasts are great because they're essentially open and standardized, and I
can sync them with bloated desktop programs like iTunes, FOSS programs like
Antennapod, or even command-line interfaces like Newsboat. DRM and arbitrary
gating of media behind proprietary technologies just makes it worse and blocks
it off from so many people.

------
danet
If anyone is on android, I would like to recommend a podcast player that is in
no way affiliated with google, is open-source and good

Antenna pod -- [https://antennapod.org/](https://antennapod.org/)

Google play page --
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.danoeh.ante...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.danoeh.antennapod&hl=en)

Github --
[https://github.com/antennapod/AntennaPod](https://github.com/antennapod/AntennaPod)

It uses RSS and open standards, has all of the podcast playing features like
2x speed, sleep timer auto download etc.

------
phillipseamore
This is all just about adverts. The BBC is gearing up to include ads in
podcasts served to users outside the UK (some of you might have noticed them
on their podcasts, I've heard them on a few episodes/podcast with no
discernable pattern [they might be A/B testing]). The BBC needs listening
metrics for this to be the extra revenue stream they hope for as well as being
able to change out the ads for individual streams.

------
MagicPropmaker
Why was the title changed to something with a misspelled/wrong word "it's"
that makes it hard to read?

------
doe88
I listen to a lot of BBC content, from their website, and it's not great to
say the least. Some require to listen in their _sound app_ (player on the
web), some permit to download the audio file, none display a RSS link, and
finally they usually do not grant access to their archives.

------
GnarfGnarf
ITS (possessive)

Not "IT'S" (pronoun + verb)

~~~
maxxxxx
Noticed that too. I think the trend for excessive apostrophes can’t be
stopped.

------
jccalhoun
I searched for a couple podcasts on desktop but didn't see anything. So I
searched for a podcast on chrome on android and this seems to be what BBC is
complaining about: [https://imgur.com/3IYpAsX](https://imgur.com/3IYpAsX)

------
adwww
Shame the BBC Sounds app doesn't support casting though, instead telling
people to just ask their smart speaker to play the BBC podcasts directly.

I sympathise with their decision, but it doesn't seem a very joined up one.

~~~
rjmunro
Which they now can't do...

------
psalminen
I was wondering why The Infinite Monkey Cage was missing from my Google
Podcasts app this morning. This might force me to find a new app to use.

Additionally, I fully support the move that the BBC made.

------
alwaysanagenda
You can't monetize the network.

------
billpg
Wait, there are podcasts and podcast players that don't use RSS?

Why would anyone do that?

~~~
swebs
>podcasts

They say it quite clearly in the article. They want to collect personal data
from users.

>podcast players

I assume so they can easily censor podcasts they disagree with politically.
There was a big scandal a few months ago with several large sites removing
access to Infowars podcasts simultaneously.

At the end of the day, it's all about having more control over users.

