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I feel like BBC Sounds is some senior manager's vanity project that they have staked their career on. Their obsession with trying to get me to use it instead o
by noneeeed 3y ago
I feel like BBC Sounds is some senior manager's vanity project that they have staked their career on.
Their obsession with trying to get me to use it instead of normal RSS feeds or third party radio services like TuneIn is incredibly frustrating. They have intentionally broken the experience for smart speaker users and podcast listeners because they are incapable of enticing them over with a better experience. The obsession with control has soured my feelings towards BBC radio.
- hadrien01 3y agoI feel the same about Radio France (the radio public broadcaster here in France, equivalent to BBC Radio + BBC Sounds). They've been pushing their app more and more, and now RSS feeds correctly list the episodes, but if you try to download one from a few months ago you just get an ad to download the app. No thanks.
- zerkten 3y agoDoes Radio France generate revenues in other French-speaking countries with the same content? It feels like the BBC is trying to maximise revenue but expectations for consumers locally and overseas are going to be very different. Blocking loopholes hurts the local users more.
- hadrien01 3y agoFrench public broadcasters are ad-supported, they don't have to separate local and overseas websites/apps/revenue logic. I've seen another comment about the BBC having ads for other BBC content; I already get ads in my Radio France podcasts (just the one before the proper content), and they're dynamic, so they surely change them depending on where you listening to maximize revenue. Probably the same type of dynamic advertising I get when listening to US podcasts with inverted French-speaking ads.
- squarefoot 3y agoThe Rock feed by Radio France is among my favorites online music radios. I don't use smartphones and don't like to keep a browser running just to listen to music, so I extracted the URL and use it into whichever player I have available. https://stream.radiofrance.fr/fiprock/fiprock_hifi.m3u8 https://stream.radiofrance.fr/fiprock/fiprock_hifi.m3u8
- zerkten 3y agoI don't follow the BBC's approaches to revenue generation that closely, but is part of this due to larger overseas audiences? I'm now living outside the UK, so I expect that I'm viewed differently as a user by the Beeb, as well as by TV licence payers. If access to content isn't controlled then it's harder to maximise the revenue. BBC Sounds feels like it's part of that efforts, but I'd be interested to know more given how much family members complain about the costs of licencing and services relative to the quality.
- akira2501 3y agoIt's about as self-conscious as you can get, too. You already have an audience for the entertainment products you produce. Out of all the places where you can sneak in a "value add," this is not one of them. As if you're going to out-produce your own creators. It's audio only entertainment. Just.. go with _that_.
- ta1243 3y agoThe BBC has to prove it's serving the entire UK. An anonymous RSS doesn't allow that. It's frustrating, but it's also inevitable from such a hostile environment.
- alexsereno 3y ago“Inevitable” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in this comment
- ta1243 3y agoInevitable in that people in charge of the BBC want to prove that people (specifically an appropriate cross-section of the British public) use the BBC to keep the funding secure
- robertlagrant 3y agoThey could do that by entering the 21st century and having an IP-locked subscription system.
- Evidlo 3y agoHow does that get them subscription estimates?
- robertlagrant 3y agoThen they can make sure people in the UK have a subscription account.
- toyg 3y agoBecause every house has a single, unchangeable IP...? You clearly never worked in an ISP.
- robertlagrant 3y ago