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.
But this brings up a good point. What is the value of google showing you the play buttons in the search results? They're trying to keep you on google's site.
But why? I don't see a financial motivator here, unless there is some long-game that I'm not aware of. In theory, driving users to websites in a search result is likely just going to make Google more money from displaying ads.
The only thing I can currently think of is they actually are trying to improve the user experience.
It wouldn't in the BBC's specific case, but in general the behaviour sending users to the site where they would likely be exposed to more advertising (probably by Google) would be the more profitable scenario.
It's pretty clearly not the path Google has followed for some years now, though. They clearly have incentive to keep people on the search results page.
If you listen via Google they not only know what you listened to but for how long you listened, which parts you skipped over or stopped listening at, and whether you listened to the ads or not. All that information has value to them. Being able to say these people googled your product within 72 hours of hearing your ad on these podcasts is very valuable.
The BBC Sounds app is only available within the UK. You may be talking about the BBC iPlayer Radio app, which is the only one available outside the country.
Unless you're side-loading on Android, which is perfectly possible too, but that's not quite "being available".
Google Podcasts is TERRIBLE compared to Google Play. The UX is just so bad. You'd expect at least some podcast-specific features like mark podcast as listened.
Not from Google I wouldn’t. They give hope to people everywhere who realise they don’t know design. Money doesn’t automatically buy competence, so if you can make something useful you can beat a Goliath in a small nice and work up from there.
Google hasn't ever really "gotten" podcast players. Their first attempt (Google Listen) was basically a bad UI around a special Reader folder -- so you could accidentally mark a podcast as read while you were flipping through your RSS feeds.
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.
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.
>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.
Yeah that sometimes works. Didn't work for us in uni though. A constant stream of spam with hilarious scare tactics.
That said, I still support the licence fee. Eventually they'll require your licence number for iPlayer and then they'll probably be able to cut back on the annoying spam.
They should just fund it out of general revenues, and dispense with the "license fee" entirely. Treat it as a marketing expense for the country as a whole, basically. The argument that they need an exclusive tax base in order to preserve autonomy is bogus - the monarch gets government funding too AIUI, do they have a dedicated tax base?
I suppose with the monarchy the argument would be that it's technically the Crown's money anyway, and Parliament just gets to administer it with her consent.
Right, but the queen doesn't have to decide how credulously or sceptically to treat claims painted on election campaign busses, dossiers of evidence of Iraqi WMDs, claims of historic sexual abuse, and so on.
The BBC does. Thus giving them plenty of opportunities to upset just about everyone.
If funds aren't ring-fenced in some way, it's way too easy for a political party to threaten that funding in return for favourable news coverage. And it would make the BBC vulnerable to the classic libertarian trick they are trying to play with the NHS:
* Cut funding for a public service
* Wait for the quality of that service to inevitably go down
* Say that it's terrible due to needless government bureaucracy
I have the GA speaker version of the podcast player. And navigating, bookmarking and selection is horrible. To the point, I've abandoned it. I do listen to BBC radio streams, but most of this content, if the songs are available from other on-tap on-line services is a waste of a good format. I'd rather more podcasts, and playlists. There isn't much need for the live element. Or having 24hr radio.
> Most people just pay it out of fear of being caught
No, I'm sure a lot pay because having a good public service is important, even more in this day and age, compared to the Murdoch owned media you get in the UK.
Of course the BBC isn't perfect, but it doesn't mean there's nothing to appreciate.
Interestingly the BBC doesn't actually do it's own forecasting, only relaying information provided by the firm it's contracted - Weather forecasting is done by a few companies in the UK, of which the BBC has a contract with one (MeteoGroup) and I believe ITV has a contract with another (the MetOffice).
Historically the BBC has always got their data for free from the Met Office. I don't watch BBC these days but there is the matter of presentation and doing the graphics. So it can be contracted out under 'producers choice'.
For a long time the Met Office had their private arm. So if ITV et al. get the private version of the Met Office and the BBC have the Met Office then it can be hard to get in to that business.
A lot of things that make sense with a state ownership model of the economy fall apart when you have things like 'producers choice' or the Met Office expected to make a buck in the private sector.
Ultimately though there are two sources for weather information and it comes down to who gets the observations data and who has the super computers. In the USA they have the public/private model right. The government has the computer and the data is available for free. In the UK (the only other place with the observations/supercomputer combo) the idea is to make money off it in this weird privatised state business sector that the Met Office finds itself in.
The internet makes the data a commodity of sorts, who knows where it comes from and how accurate it really is. In the olden days of regional TV you would have actual forecasters who knew their area. Imagine you have a lake in the Alps and the computer gives you the data for the mountain top for the town by the lake below. The nearest observations come from the airport on the other side of the lake. A professional forecaster who knows the observations for that town would be able to work it out properly and have an informed guess for the town, and hack the model accordingly.
The BBC and other broadcasters have stepped away from having that aspect of local TV with the human aspect of a quality weather forecast. I guess it matters not if the observation data is getting better.
What's hilarious is that the reason is Google is pushing back on sharing user analytics with BBC. For another company it'd be the pinnacle of respecting user but you just seem biased against Google so there's nothing they can do to please you it seems.
All other services (Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple, etc.) serve podcasts on their own properties but if Google does it it's monopolistic. To me such claims about Google have become too overused and have lost their meaning.
I don't blame BBC though for sticking to their guns because they really want user analytics and think have the weight to pull out. The justification they provided is just misleading.
The podcasts are played directly from the BBC's servers.
The BBC already have all the consumption data that they would expect - IP address, device, time listened, etc - in their own server logs. Just like a normal podcast player.
So... what user analytics do the BBC actually want?
Those user analytics aren't very useful. You get IP address, device and time _downloaded_. You get nothing about "listened".
There's a standard NPR have written to improve this, but it requires the podcast players to implement it. It's very privacy-respecting but I doubt Apple will implement it, so it's probably going to be a non-starter unless the big podcasters like the BBC hold the line.
The standard is RAD. The BBC hasn't implemented it.
For Google Podcasts, "downloaded" = "listened", since it has no auto-download feature. So they are (excepting the minority who manually download) actual listens.
You remind me that I should add a sniffer for RAD support in my Podnews pages, so I'll go and do that. My own podcast has RAD tags in it.
> 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.
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.
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?
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.
As part of their public service remit they need to be able to show they're making content for all age ranges/demographics, if a big chunk of the audience is moving to podcasts, especially if that part of the audience is younger then that's a big deal for them.
This is the super weird reasoning. It is as simple as incentivizing the users. Make one popular podcast only available in their app and let the users consume everything else as is. You'll quickly figure out what content is driving use of their app.
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.
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.
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.
Podcasts are downloaded from source, but may also be downloaded and played locally. Knowing download data isn't the same as knowing it was actually played (I regularly delete podcasts from my feed, but my client still downloads them), let along if I'm pausing for periods at a time, or fast forwarding, or any other habits that may be useful.
my guess is metrics. I once had my cable company call me out of nowhere near the end of the year. Wanted to lower my bill by 12$ a month, wanted to increase my service from internet only to internet with full tv package all tiers, AND if I agreed to all this would get a 300$ visa gift card. After 6 months if I did not like it no strings attached and I could stop. So I being skeptical I was even talking to my ISP company asked why would they give such and offer when I was already a non complaining customer. They said to me that honestly they just are trying to get their year end TV subscriber numbers up before the numbers go to investors who see annual reports or something. They were in a huge push to beat the local competitors. It ended up really being my ISP and they were good on what they offered.
I think they gave it away here - they're trying to get metrics and analytics they don't get through other apps. Podcasts have always offered really limited data, Apple do offer some data now - and I'm sure Google are collecting plenty but obviously they're keeping it to themselves.
There was a play for a new podcasting standard by I think Gimlet (or one of them big companies in the space), that let you have user identifiers, inject ads based on whatever at different times, and send tracking messages at different times. I listened to an interview with the guy who makes Overcast and he basically said there's no reason any podcast app except theirs would want to support that, so I guess owning your own app for your own content is really the only way to get those analytics if you want them.
As other users have pointed out metrics is probably part of this but I suspect there's also a matter of music licensing. The Sounds app has more music documentaries where they keep the music in (BBC podcasts tend to strip it out) as well as curated playlists of music. Securing licenses to broadcast copyrighted content on-line and in perpetuity has for a long while been a huge deal for the BBC and forms at least part of the reason why much of their huge back catalogue of TV and radio remains unavailable (source: I used to work there (caveat: ~7 years ago so this may be out of date)).
Woudln't that mean the BBC are lying? Surely not ...
I can understand older items in the back catalogue needing to be removed, but for most shows now the standard contract should include "and presented on iPlayer in perpetuity". I don't know why they'd commission a new children's show, for example, and not include such a clause?
Private Eye has been covering this extensively. In brief a senior executive who sees himself as one day being head of the BBC is pushing it, even though it's broken, no one likes it, and it reduces money available for making programmes.
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.
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.
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.
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...
....
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.
That's what I'd like to know too. Is this a first step to going proprietary-app-only? I hope not, and it probably doesn't mean that because at least with RSS the BBC still get some user metrics, such as location based on your IP address. Also removing RSS feeds would remove the podcasts from Apple's itunes, which is generally recognised as the biggest discovery platform for podcasts. But who knows?
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.
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.
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.
If Google Podcasts has gone from non-existence to being "one of the most popular platforms" in a matter of months, its actually an insanely good reason not to engage with them at all.
Personally I've wanted a good podcast app on Android and the Google app ticked all the boxes. Maybe Google is successful because of good product design in this case. However, I do agree the overall size of Google's influence is of concern.
Google get all the metrics, particularly on popularity of podcast apps available in the Play store. When new features are added they can see the metrics on increase or decrease in uptake, etc.. If the top podcast apps are using Google for advertising then that's more useful data.
This surely means Google are in a position to eat any apps lunch if they choose to. If Google couldn't release a product and have that hit the top 3 [on Android] in a few months then they have some serious problems; they'd have to majorly mess up their design or functionality, by not bothering to look at the metrics.
Now of course Google might choose to make something "innovative", but at least as far as which functions to include, and what people using podcast apps like, they're starting with a major advantage.
That's because searching "podcasts" on the Play Store yields Google Podcasts as the first result, and AntennaPod (arguably the best app in the market) appears on the fifth row.
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.
I really like the BBC Sounds app, I know it holds a selection of high quality content that I like, as opposed to a firehose of any old thing like google et al.
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.
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.
I agree with the navel gazing and blinkered thinking prevelant at the Beeb.
I tried the BBC Sounds app, once I learnt about their intention to phase-out the excellent standalone iPlayer Radio app. The sound quality was markedly worse for live radio and coupled with a haphazard UI/UX - the app just got deleted. Also, there is no dearth of apps to consume podcasts e.g. I use the native Podcasts app on iOS and Deezer/Spotify on Android. BBC Sounds does not bring anything new or radical to the table.
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
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.
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
Which are nevertheless accessible from any podcast app.
To suggest that Google trying to muscle into the podcast space by leveraging their search engine to direct people not to the podcast feed but to their own service is in any way equivalent to small creators adding value to their listeners by providing exclusive content is absurd to say the least.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
The podcasts can be hosted by the owner (for example on Libsyn) but the syndication platforms copy and rehost them most of the time. SoundCloud, Spotify, etc.
I agree with your points regarding ads, but I want to point out these two are usually at odds:
> a more closed platform
> convenient to play the audio any way I feel like (i.e. no intrusive DRM)
For instance with audio in general, we've seen lots of pushes toward streaming rather than downloading, which allows the platform to control when, where, and how people listen.
I am 100% with you on the ads model, I think the internet would be a better place without all of the unnecessary tracking and crazyness used to make ads more effective.
I love the trend toward premium versions of things that are ads free, if I don’t want to be tracked and have annoying ads I should have that option. I think the internet overall would be a much better place if every service offered this.. pay for the service and escape the ads madness.
Totally agree on the rev share as well and I think that should be democratized much more so.. it should be possible for things to remain open as well as for creators to get paid
I don't have a problem with podcast advertisements because it's essentially a return to the old way of doing advertising, free of tracking and crazyness. Like on terrestial radio or in newspapers. That means advertisers need to make the ad relevant to the podcast somehow, because it's the only heuristic they have. Podcast players always have skip forward and back buttons, anyway.
Seems odd to define a thing by how it's packaged and consumed rather than the content itself. An episodic internet radio show doesn't stop being a podcast just because you're listening to it through winamp.
Would all it take to convince you that a podcast can delivered via something other than RSS, say ActivityPub, be your preferred client supporting it?
Why is that odd? I expect a web page to be viewable in my browser and to be delivered over http and use a combination of html, css, and JavaScript.
Calling some thing that is not playable in my podcast app and doesn’t use the same protocols as my other podcasts, isn’t a podcast. No more than a Word Doc is a web page.
I expect to be able to subscribe to a podcast using my podcast player via RSS.
I would say yes. It’s no more a podcast player than the old AOL client was a web browser.
Funny enough, while HNers always complain about Apple’s “walled garden”, the Apple podcast player subscribes directly to the host’s RSS feed. Once you subscribe to a podcast, Apple’s servers are no longer involved.
This is why my podcast isn't available on Google Podcasts, but is on iTunes. I read the agreement required to put it on Google Podcasts (the usual "irrevocable worldwide license to do whatever we want with it" for uploading data to Google servers), and passed.
Additionally, I do use bandwidth as my rough listener metric, so letting it be hosted by Google Podcasts would impact that significantly. Which is closer to the concern the BBC seems to have.
Google Podcasts serves podcasts directly from the original source, so it's not being "hosted" by them. At least, that's what I've read concerning the BBC podcasts.
Well I for one don't mind it because that's how I found out about the service in question and am really enjoying using it. If the OP has something of interest to say in the comment, the "signature" link is no problem IMHO.
Probably is a drive from the BBC itself into a closed DRM platform. Their BBC Sounds app is woeful. License fee payers are treated like complete dirt. Being charged multiple times for the same content. It's about time the BBC just became a subscription service. Older content should just be left on Torrents, and be available for re-sampling. They are absolute cretins.
Side issue, at some point (probably still are) they were selling downloadable DRM content (not noticed with Sounds), of shows you have already paid for. I'm still bitter about their digital archive project that they wasted so much money on. License fee funded content should be liberated. I know licensing is difficult when it comes to partnerships, but it highlights another broken part of the license fee. Their archives would be really useful to liberate. I've succombed in the past to buying DVDs of series. And the quality is really poor. So I've already paid twice. The BBC is quite good value for money but the license fee makes me sick, especially when they comercially are exploiting it.
The radio shows used to be downloadable without the songs due to license constraints. I'm guessing Sounds allows them via some kind of DRM to include music, but even at 28 days they time-out for me within the app a little too fast.
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.
Looks like it may have just been cached, a few minutes ago at approximately 9:28 Eastern my podcatcher of choice just downloaded the episode, even though pulling the RSS through my browser still does not show the episode.
Additionally, the podnews article linked in other comments indicates this is just a trick with robots.txt, and does not appear to impact the actual function of the podcast.
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.
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
164 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 146 ms ] threadFrankly, 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.
But why? I don't see a financial motivator here, unless there is some long-game that I'm not aware of. In theory, driving users to websites in a search result is likely just going to make Google more money from displaying ads.
The only thing I can currently think of is they actually are trying to improve the user experience.
This is the company that decides shades of blue by conversion numbers.
Maybe they indirectly want to 'improve user experience' (so you're less likely to leave) but it's not their terminal value.
Why would it be more profitable to send users to the BBC website?
If you listen via Google they not only know what you listened to but for how long you listened, which parts you skipped over or stopped listening at, and whether you listened to the ads or not. All that information has value to them. Being able to say these people googled your product within 72 hours of hearing your ad on these podcasts is very valuable.
1. You see a podcast you're interested in
2. You go to the BBC's website
3. You discover you need to download BBC Sounds (if in the UK)
4. You download the app
5. You register with a username and password (and UK postcode, which narrows you down to the street where you live)
6. You press play and start listening
or
1. You see a podcast you're interested in
2. You press play and start listening
Wouldn't anyone prefer #2? Including the BBC's programme makers?
I'm a non-UK listener and use the BBC Sounds app all the time. The only thing that's unavailable are program downloads.
Unless you're side-loading on Android, which is perfectly possible too, but that's not quite "being available".
They're splitting it into "Google Podcasts" and "YouTube Music"
Not only a great podcast app, but it respects your Freedom. It's the only thing I miss about not having a smartphone.
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.
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.
That said, I still support the licence fee. Eventually they'll require your licence number for iPlayer and then they'll probably be able to cut back on the annoying spam.
The BBC does. Thus giving them plenty of opportunities to upset just about everyone.
* Cut funding for a public service
* Wait for the quality of that service to inevitably go down
* Say that it's terrible due to needless government bureaucracy
* Privatise it
No, I'm sure a lot pay because having a good public service is important, even more in this day and age, compared to the Murdoch owned media you get in the UK.
Of course the BBC isn't perfect, but it doesn't mean there's nothing to appreciate.
If I had the option of not paying and losing access to BBC channels, I probably would. I'd miss Doctor Who but they only do that every few years now.
For a long time the Met Office had their private arm. So if ITV et al. get the private version of the Met Office and the BBC have the Met Office then it can be hard to get in to that business.
A lot of things that make sense with a state ownership model of the economy fall apart when you have things like 'producers choice' or the Met Office expected to make a buck in the private sector.
Ultimately though there are two sources for weather information and it comes down to who gets the observations data and who has the super computers. In the USA they have the public/private model right. The government has the computer and the data is available for free. In the UK (the only other place with the observations/supercomputer combo) the idea is to make money off it in this weird privatised state business sector that the Met Office finds itself in.
The internet makes the data a commodity of sorts, who knows where it comes from and how accurate it really is. In the olden days of regional TV you would have actual forecasters who knew their area. Imagine you have a lake in the Alps and the computer gives you the data for the mountain top for the town by the lake below. The nearest observations come from the airport on the other side of the lake. A professional forecaster who knows the observations for that town would be able to work it out properly and have an informed guess for the town, and hack the model accordingly.
The BBC and other broadcasters have stepped away from having that aspect of local TV with the human aspect of a quality weather forecast. I guess it matters not if the observation data is getting better.
All other services (Spotify, SoundCloud, Apple, etc.) serve podcasts on their own properties but if Google does it it's monopolistic. To me such claims about Google have become too overused and have lost their meaning.
I don't blame BBC though for sticking to their guns because they really want user analytics and think have the weight to pull out. The justification they provided is just misleading.
The BBC already have all the consumption data that they would expect - IP address, device, time listened, etc - in their own server logs. Just like a normal podcast player.
So... what user analytics do the BBC actually want?
There's a standard NPR have written to improve this, but it requires the podcast players to implement it. It's very privacy-respecting but I doubt Apple will implement it, so it's probably going to be a non-starter unless the big podcasters like the BBC hold the line.
For Google Podcasts, "downloaded" = "listened", since it has no auto-download feature. So they are (excepting the minority who manually download) actual listens.
You remind me that I should add a sniffer for RAD support in my Podnews pages, so I'll go and do that. My own podcast has RAD tags in it.
I sympathise with their decision, but it doesn't seem a very joined up one.
> 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.
Why would anyone do that?
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.
> 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/...
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.
There was a play for a new podcasting standard by I think Gimlet (or one of them big companies in the space), that let you have user identifiers, inject ads based on whatever at different times, and send tracking messages at different times. I listened to an interview with the guy who makes Overcast and he basically said there's no reason any podcast app except theirs would want to support that, so I guess owning your own app for your own content is really the only way to get those analytics if you want them.
I can understand older items in the back catalogue needing to be removed, but for most shows now the standard contract should include "and presented on iPlayer in perpetuity". I don't know why they'd commission a new children's show, for example, and not include such a clause?
https://podnews.net/article/bbc-blocks-google
So why are they calling out Google specifically? And what results would they prefer?
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.
https://imgur.com/oiFQLXj
https://imgur.com/UbacU32
Is that going?
A new program being forced down listeners ears
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/jan/20/bbc-sounds-app...
.... 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.
....
"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.
This surely means Google are in a position to eat any apps lunch if they choose to. If Google couldn't release a product and have that hit the top 3 [on Android] in a few months then they have some serious problems; they'd have to majorly mess up their design or functionality, by not bothering to look at the metrics.
Now of course Google might choose to make something "innovative", but at least as far as which functions to include, and what people using podcast apps like, they're starting with a major advantage.
https://play.google.com/store/search?q=podcasts
They're not. Apple Podcasts is the most popular podcast client, followed by... Spotify I believe, then 'other'.
Not "IT'S" (pronoun + verb)
(Also an ex-beeb employee)
I tried the BBC Sounds app, once I learnt about their intention to phase-out the excellent standalone iPlayer Radio app. The sound quality was markedly worse for live radio and coupled with a haphazard UI/UX - the app just got deleted. Also, there is no dearth of apps to consume podcasts e.g. I use the native Podcasts app on iOS and Deezer/Spotify on Android. BBC Sounds does not bring anything new or radical to the table.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/bbc-sounds-iplayer-radio-pod...
I find this story quite confusing.
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.
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
It already is happening, some podcasts on BBC Sounds are exclusive to BBC Sounds (albeit for a time limited period)
To suggest that Google trying to muscle into the podcast space by leveraging their search engine to direct people not to the podcast feed but to their own service is in any way equivalent to small creators adding value to their listeners by providing exclusive content is absurd to say the least.
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.
The podcasts are available for free, but funded by ads, or you can subscribe to the premium feed where the ads are edited out.
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.
> a more closed platform
> convenient to play the audio any way I feel like (i.e. no intrusive DRM)
For instance with audio in general, we've seen lots of pushes toward streaming rather than downloading, which allows the platform to control when, where, and how people listen.
I love the trend toward premium versions of things that are ads free, if I don’t want to be tracked and have annoying ads I should have that option. I think the internet overall would be a much better place if every service offered this.. pay for the service and escape the ads madness.
Totally agree on the rev share as well and I think that should be democratized much more so.. it should be possible for things to remain open as well as for creators to get paid
I think the issue is that you put the emphasis on “exclusive” instead of “podcasts”.
If it isn’t delivered over an RSS feed that I can subscribe to in my podcast player of choice, it’s not a podcast.
Would all it take to convince you that a podcast can delivered via something other than RSS, say ActivityPub, be your preferred client supporting it?
Calling some thing that is not playable in my podcast app and doesn’t use the same protocols as my other podcasts, isn’t a podcast. No more than a Word Doc is a web page.
I expect to be able to subscribe to a podcast using my podcast player via RSS.
You mean like TV shows? And radio shows? And newspaper comics?
Saying that podcasts have to be consumed via RSS is like saying that TV must be delivered via cable.
Would you say a Word document is a web page?
Funny enough, while HNers always complain about Apple’s “walled garden”, the Apple podcast player subscribes directly to the host’s RSS feed. Once you subscribe to a podcast, Apple’s servers are no longer involved.
Additionally, I do use bandwidth as my rough listener metric, so letting it be hosted by Google Podcasts would impact that significantly. Which is closer to the concern the BBC seems to have.
This was even mentioned to you roughly a month ago by someone else:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19287119
Didn't seem to have much of a lasting impact on you.
The radio shows used to be downloadable without the songs due to license constraints. I'm guessing Sounds allows them via some kind of DRM to include music, but even at 28 days they time-out for me within the app a little too fast.
They are really corner stones of our society today.
They should co-operate more.
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.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/26/18282436/bbc-podcasts-goo...
EDIT: Here's the robots.txt file:
https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/robots.txt?utm_source=podn...
Additionally, the podnews article linked in other comments indicates this is just a trick with robots.txt, and does not appear to impact the actual function of the podcast.
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.
Podcasts remind me of fanzines. Which is a great thing.