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BBC podcasts on third-party apps

bbc.co.uk

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Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#161

Post by Tsiklon »

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…

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).

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#162

Post by Theodores »

Tsiklon wrote: post #161
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…

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#163

Post by RugnirViking »

jamescridland wrote: post #148
atonse wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Either: 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…

Yes. thats why the podcasts are available on wide range of services not owned by google, for example my preferred client at the moment, spotify.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#164

Post by keypress »

saaaaaam wrote: post #160
keypress wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Charged multiple times? Is there a paid subscription/pay per item element to BBC Sounds now? I’ve not used it in a while.

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.

Re: BBC podcasts on third-party apps

#165

Post by ascagnel_ »

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?

Yup; you get a URL to the premium feed with a unique hash on the end.
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