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Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#41

Post by aligibbs »

timthorn wrote: post #40
tcd wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC is under threat because they refuse to innovate. They're not yet doing full scale 4k streaming, programs disappear after X number of days, and to be quite honest, they don't offer the value for money Netflix does. And BBC's own shows, like Planet Earth 2 are already on Netflix, so why would you even still need a license fee at that point? It made sense 20 years ago when there were only 5 or so channels, now t…

The BBC certainly doesn’t refuse to innovate. It has a massive history of technical innovation – not least broadcasting TV over IP multicast in 1999 and launching the iPlayer in 2005. There’s no point in them offering full scale 4k streaming given their catalogue, and the 4 week programme availability is a regulatory restriction due to competition concerns – this is demonstrated by the fact that they’re showing serie…

£5.70 x 12 = £68.40 BBC Licence fee - £155.50 [1] Actual monthly cost £12.875

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/general/licence_fee

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#42

Post by timthorn »

aligibbs wrote: post #41
timthorn wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC certainly doesn’t refuse to innovate. It has a massive history of technical innovation – not least broadcasting TV over IP multicast in 1999 and launching the iPlayer in 2005. There’s no point in them offering full scale 4k streaming given their catalogue, and the 4 week programme availability is a regulatory restriction due to competition concerns – this is demonstrated by the fact that they’re showing serie…

£5.70 x 12 = £68.40 BBC Licence fee - £155.50 [1] Actual monthly cost £12.875 [1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/faqs/general/licence_fee

Ack. Thanks for that, goodness knows what I was thinking. Still, the value is high in any case.

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#43

Post by [deleted] »

chrisseaton wrote: post #16
afandian wrote: post #13

I commented on the BBC website but I might as well post it here too: As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC, this is one part that seems really unfortunate. Why should I need an account to listen to BBC content? All the pages on the BBC website that pretend to answer this question are evasive and dodge the question. What do you have to hide? Please re-consider. Allow your content to be made available vi…

> Why should I need an account to listen to BBC content? It doesn't apply to audio of course, but watching BBC video content now requires you to be a licence payer doesn't it? So they need to know who you are. I guess they just extended the system to all content for simplicity.

[deleted]

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#45

Post by ForHackernews »

afandian wrote: post #13

I commented on the BBC website but I might as well post it here too: As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC, this is one part that seems really unfortunate. Why should I need an account to listen to BBC content? All the pages on the BBC website that pretend to answer this question are evasive and dodge the question. What do you have to hide? Please re-consider. Allow your content to be made available vi…

> I don't use a Google account on my android phone because I value my privacy. That means I can't install the Sounds app.

This isn't strictly true. You can sideload an APK even without a Google account.

Obviously the BBC making its content more accessible would still be a good thing, and most people aren't going to go sideloading their Sounds app.

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#46

Post by CheckBlanket »

afandian wrote: post #19
kacamak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC Jesus christ

What? There are tonnes of critics and conspiracy theorists. Look up 'TV licensing' on YouTube. I am not one of those. I am very grateful that we have Radio 3, 4 and various podcasts. The news is generally balanced and generally of high quality. I think that's reasonable contextualization for the comment.

The stuff on YouTube is pretty ridiculous, but it did lead me to discover http://www.bbctvlicence.com - an archive of the automated and increasingly aggressive (until the cycle resets) letters TV Licensing inundate non-license holding households with. I've got a personal stack of around 10, I've only lived here half a year.

The BBC doesn't do themselves any favours in winning back non-payees with these tactics.

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#47

Post by isostatic »

afandian wrote: post #23
isostatic wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They made me sign into iPlayer radio the other day. That’s not what I want from iPlayer. Why don’t they do what users actually want?

This is a legitimate question. They are a special class of organization and have all kinds of policies to work to. A private company can do what they want. The problem is the policies.

Somebody somewhere has presumably said "we want to know exactly how many people use it"

Lower down they've said "we need more people signed in"

Then lower down that they've decreed "if we force people to sign in, we'll increase the numbers signing in, even if we reduce the total users using the system"

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#49

Post by sctb »

kacamak wrote: post #17
afandian wrote: post #13

I commented on the BBC website but I might as well post it here too: As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC, this is one part that seems really unfortunate. Why should I need an account to listen to BBC content? All the pages on the BBC website that pretend to answer this question are evasive and dodge the question. What do you have to hide? Please re-consider. Allow your content to be made available vi…

>As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC Jesus christ

Could you please post civilly and substantively or not at all?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Opening up BBC Sounds to others’ podcasts and commercial radio

#50

Post by toufiqbarhamov »

sctb wrote: post #49
kacamak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>As a proud listener, viewer and supporter of the BBC Jesus christ

Could you please post civilly and substantively or not at all? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Its been nearly two months since I started emailing hn@ycombinator.com without a reply. I’ve changed email providers in case it was a spam issue, and still nothing. So, I’m trying this again. Please respond.
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