James Cridland

BBC audio for international users

A BBC Sounds presentation from April 2019

Embargoes and “in advance” briefings are always slightly odd at the best of times. You chat amiably with a senior member of staff, but nothing can be used until XX date. It’s a helpful thing for journalists.

In this case, an “in advance” briefing with a PR person (who had to wake up at 4.30am his time to tell you that there’s a strict embargo on using the information until XX) was rather undermined by an announcement containing much of this information being posted by the same company six hours beforehand.

The BBC - for it was them - made an announcement about the new availability of audio on the BBC.com website, which appeared in my news aggregation tools that I use for Podnews. I quickly blogged about it, before a call “unveiling” much of this information to me under an embargo the BBC had already comprehensively broken six hours previously. A bit awkward.

The substance of the public announcement, anyway - and respecting additional detail which remains under embargo - is:

  • There’s a new website for international users called BBC Audio. It offers podcasts and live radio for international users. For me, it’s now linked from the desktop website; but not from the app - I think it’s rolling out (see above’s “XX date”).
  • The FAQ includes a question saying: “Will I lose all my subscribed and bookmarked content from BBC Sounds?” which looks very much to me as if this is a replacement (for international users) for BBC Sounds. The FAQ says that nothing will be transferred. In my experience, the new BBC Audio website has a “Continue listening” rail which knows what shows I listened-to on BBC Sounds, which is nice.
  • The only radio stations available are BBC World Service and BBC Radio 4 (“due to rights reasons”). No local radio, no national music radio.
  • The FAQ says “Most of the BBC’s programmes are available to listen to on demand.” In reality, none of the BBC’s programmes on World Service or Radio 4 are available as catch-up radio on the BBC Audio website, though many are available in podcast form. And that’s probably fair enough, since the podcasts are supported by “advertising-outside-the-UK”, as we’re told on every podcast.
  • All the podcasts still start with a BBC Sounds ident. I hope it goes away. It is almost as unloved by this listener as the note that this podcast is supported by “advertising-outside-the-UK”.

Not calling myself a “radio futurologist” or anything, but back in November, I predicted this might happen, given the messy experience using BBC Sounds. Advertising in BBC Sounds simply couldn’t work alongside music content, in a grey area of music rights due to an accident of history. It looks like I got it pretty well correct. I am particularly delighted that BBC Radio 4 will continue to exist for international listeners.

Assuming that this replaces BBC Sounds, and assuming, too, that BBC domestic music radio will eventually be geo-blocked outside the UK, there will be many people disappointed at losing Radio 1, Radio 2 or 6 music. I have sympathy with that; but also, I want the BBC to succeed, and in order to succeed it needs to be as commercially nimble as it possibly can outside the UK. It can’t afford to both earn from non-UK audiences and make music radio available. This is a necessary step. And, at last, a strategy.

RCS

  • Radio Monitor released stats suggesting that radio is significantly bigger than Spotify. Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso got 1.6bn streams on Spotify globally in 2024; but was heard 1.3bn times on radio… in the UK alone. Radio is, on average, 10 times bigger than Spotify, the data suggests.

  • Along with RAJAR numbers, BBC Sounds released its consumption data for Q4/2024. Its weekly audience grew by 3% quarter-on-quarter. It’s not clear to me how this splits UK/non-UK (or even if it does).

  • In Australia, the big media story is a fill-in radio presenter alleging unlawful termination of her contract by the ABC.

  • Kyle and Jackie O’s new advertising in Melbourne. (Kyle now has a health scare, and whatever I think of the show, the man deserves good luck and good health.)

  • I’m told that the “average age” figures I mentioned last week from RAJAR were based on listeners, not on hours. So, a 53 year-old who listens to two minutes of Radio 1 in a week before his ears bleed and he retreats to Scott Mills on Radio 2 will count just as much as a 15 year-old who listens to Radio 1 for six hours a day. I’d be fascinated at seeing average age by listener hour for each station.

  • Finally, a favour. If you produce podcasts, or you are otherwise responsible for getting podcasts out there, I’d be really grateful if you’d fill in the Podnews report card. Your data is important to each of the big podcast platforms, who partially rely on data from this survey to get developer resource internally. It will take less than ten minutes. Please and thank you!

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