What big UK media thinks of Apple and Google

There’s an interesting set of responses for the UK government’s recent consultation about Apple and Google’s mobile ecosystems.

A number of people submitted their responses, but most interesting to read a few responses…

Radiocentre

Radiocentre’s response, from the UK commercial radio trade association (and likely on behalf of all UK commercial radio companies)

Radiocentre focused on voice assistants, noting that 20% of radio listening is via a smart speaker (much more than via apps and websites).

Both the BBC and Radiocentre argue that companies like Apple can use data they learn from the entire operating system (including voice assistants) to improve, for example, the live music radio stations in Apple Music. It suggests that this is an unfair advantage - broadcasters can’t get the same data from the entire operating system, after all. They suggest that the data that Apple and Google learn about radio listeners on their device is significantly better than the data that broadcasters get, even if those broadcasters are big enough to build their own integrations. (The BBC calls this “information asymmetry” - nice phrase).

Particularly, the broadcasters would like to know, for example, how often the voice assistants fail to work as the user would like, or what content the user is given. (I’m reminded of Times Radio, which for voice-assistant users at launch didn’t give a link to the UK radio station, but instead, linked to a station in a different language somewhere like Puerto Rico).

DMG Media

The response from DMG Media, the publisher of the Daily Mail, notes sigificant competition from the pre-installed Apple News.

DMG also note that Apple asks users whether they want apps to track them or not, and more than 70% said “no” - thus significantly removing the opportunities from the “identifier for advertisers ID” on the platform. I don’t think this prompt is given when you load Apple News (and that does, as I understand it, contain advertising).

The BBC

The BBC’s response is, as you might expect, the most meaty. A few notes from their response:

The BBC’s apps are free (since they’re paid-for by the licence fee). This, the BBC feels, gives them a disadvantage since Apple is more likely to promote apps that they are earning their 30% fee from. (section 18) This is also true within the Apple Podcasts app, where very clearly, podcasts with a paid-for channel - like the BBC’s own Premium Podcasts - get better promotion than shows without. And, yes, Apple keeps 30% of that money, too.

There are a few odd statements from the BBC. They’re unhappy that their apps appear on every single device connected to app stores - they might want to do a different deal with a device manufacturer. (section 8) It sounds as if the BBC wishes to, especially in cars, make sure that the BBC Sounds app doesn’t appear in the app store, and instead that they do a direct deal with the car manufacturer in response to get better data capture or more advantageous placement. Hard to argue that Apple should be more open, if you’re then going to make your apps less open.

As another example, the BBC withheld its BBC iPlayer app from the Google TV Streamer for the first six months of the product’s launch (there’s a claim of “technical issues”, but it’s the same product with the same features as the Chromecast it replaced). That’s clearly proof that it’s perfectly possible to make apps unavailable to certain devices already - and, indeed, I once published an app on Google Play which was only available to one device, so that capability seems very available. The BBC can’t really have it both ways. (Imagine if the new version of Apple TV didn’t have iPlayer for six months!)

It’s interesting to note section 6, which probably references open RSS: “We do not charge platforms and other distribution partners for our services but this wide distribution has to be achieved via commercial negotiations with those controlling the routes to our audience.” This is fine, as long as you overlook the fact that the BBC blocked Google from accessing its podcasts in 2021. Again, there seems to be a bit of both-ways-ism here.

Another interesting thing is a suggestion that the reason why many old devices no longer work with iPlayer and/or BBC Sounds is that it’s Apple’s fault, and this is not what the BBC wants. (section 9c)

Some of the BBC’s claims are wrong, though. Here’s section 22:

For example, inclusion of content in Apple Podcasts requires publishers to enable Apple to create podcast transcripts. These transcripts are Apple’s intellectual property rather than the podcast creator’s, enabling Apple to make use of it for its own content creation.

Where to start with this. First, no - if you produce your own transcripts, as the BBC ought to be doing, then those transcripts are the BBC’s intellectual property. It’s the BBC’s fault that it isn’t creating transcripts, and therefore Apple has to backfill with some of its own. (Using VTT format would also allow you to surface those transcripts on the BBC Sounds and BBC Audio apps, just saying).

Apple isn’t “making use of the transcripts for its own content creation”, since Apple doesn’t make podcast content anyway. It’s certainly making use of transcripts internally for search, and presumably for its own algorithms. It’s unlikely that this would change, anyway, if they were ingesting “proper” transcripts from the broadcaster.

All in all, though - some interesting views from broadcasters, and others, about the tensions between “big tech” and legacy broadcasters.

This post includes an affiliate link to Apple Podcasts.