The other big news today from BBC Radio & Music Interactive (where I work) is that we’re about to open up twenty more programmes – mostly from Radio 4 and Five Live as podcast feeds for people to download. As my semi-ultimate boss said:
“The BBC was the first British broadcaster to podcast when we made In Our Time available last year and this trial will enable us to further explore the editorial, technical and distribution issues involved.”
Some of the programmes that you will be able to subscribe to include (in full or part): The Today Programme, The Reith Lectures, In Our Time, In Business, From Our Own Correspondent, Sportsweek and Fighting Talk plus highlights and documentaries from Radio 1, 1Xtra and the World Service.
For more information see the BBC Press release and the article in Media Guardian. I’m really excited by this stuff, for a whole range of reasons personally. And with sites like Odeo on the horizon, I can’t help but think this whole area’s about to explode.
15 replies on “Some news on the BBC and podcasting…”
More please! All my favourite programmes are on when I’m at work. The In Our Time podcast has been a wonderful.
How about an entire John Peel back catalogue (Radio 1 Show and Home Truths)? And Start the Week, and that Puzzle programme I can never remember the name of, and the Afternoon Play, and… Oh, just give us EVERYTHING (with the possible exception of You and Yours) and let us choose!
I’m so glad that the BBC is doing this. It seems like such an obvious way to increase a show’s audience.
I’ve been a fan of the Fighting Talk podcast since it started, although the quality and intelligibility of the IDv3 tagging has occasionally left something to be desired 🙂
Any word on when the RSS feeds will be available?
That’s an interesting point – how would you think such programmes should be tagged?
Well, I think tag completeness is important. Some Fighting Talk MP3s come through with no artist or album information, which makes them really hard to find in iTunes.
Personally, I’d say they should be tagged like:
Artist = Show Name
Album = Show title or date stamp
Track = same as album
That way you can find it in iTunes. More importantly, on an iPod, you can find it from any of the major ID3-based starting points in the iPod’s Music menu: Artists, Albums or Songs.
The Today Programme would be a great choice for a daily podcast, but it’s really one that people want to be listening to on their way to work. Since so many people have to leave for work before 9AM, would it be possible to split the Today Programme into 3 hour-long podcasts available almost immediately after broadcast? That way, communters could download at least the first chunk of the programme to listen to on their way to work on the day it is broadcast…
No, chop Today into the items it is composed of, and post them bit by bit as they air.
A close reading of the press release says it is the morning interview only being podcast.
Ah, right, thanks Kevin – the morning interview it is – however, is it just me who has failed to find either the today podcast feed or a link to the downloadable MP3 of the interview?
BBC to podcast more programmes
Ladies & gentleman, BBC announce that podcasting is gonna be expanding on their airwaves with more than 20 podcasted shows – * BBC – Press Office * things are going to explode, via Plasticbag….
Has anyone cobbled together a webpage or RSS feed with all these different BBC MP3’s all in one place?
(nice site redesign tom)
Not yet – as soon as it’s all launched, I’ll make a post about the whole thing to help people find em.
I’m suddenly unable to access these files (the actual mp3s for FightingTalk and InOurTime) from the US. They seem to be hosted on: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/, but I just get ‘Not Found’…
Is this a policy of the BBC? (that would be so sad…)
I have the seme problem with “In our time”. I download from Italy…
Hello, Yes nice but where is the podcast feed rss?
A podcasting radio that can play all the podcast feed : http://blognet.free.fr
Next big question of course is when are shows like the nine o’clock news etc going to be added as video podcasts… this is clearly the future and we expect you guys to once again blaze the trail…..