Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

BBC podcasts on third-party apps

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 165 posts

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#131

Post by gerash »

Traster wrote: post #3

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 k…

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#132

Post by billpg »

Theodores wrote: post #79
Traster wrote: post #3

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 k…

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 h…

I pay the license fee because I am required to by law.

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#133

Post by foobarandgrill »

billpg wrote: post #132
Theodores wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

I pay the license fee because I am required to by law. 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.

And it's been subpar the last few years anyway. They wasted Peter Capaldi's awesome potential.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#134

Post by petepete »

nickcw wrote: post #115

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 th…

I use AntennaPod to listen to many BBC radio programmes (not including the Archers!) and can't recommend it highly enough. Open source, clean UI, light and simple.

https://antennapod.org

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#135

Post by foobarandgrill »

voxadam wrote: post #114
ascagnel_ wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'd imagine it's a token in the request headers

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#136

Post by michaelt »

0815test wrote: post #94
Theodores wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 h…

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?

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#137

Post by 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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#138

Post by pessimizer »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #111
driverdan wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 da…

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#140

Post by Spivak »

majewsky wrote: post #82
Spivak wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Seems odd to define a thing by how it's packaged and consumed rather than the content itself. You mean like TV shows? And radio shows? And newspaper comics?

I would agree with you if it weren't for the fact that all of those things are completely divorced from their original medium.

Saying that podcasts have to be consumed via RSS is like saying that TV must be delivered via cable.

Post reply on HN