Wednesday, November 17

BBC doing trial podcasting of several shows

Damn, the BBC website is a mess, it's impossible for me to decipher, but this much I know.

The BBC is offering mp3 downloads if not podcasting of several of its shows. This as opposed to the streaming real broadcasts. I could not find feeds of all the shows but I did find a podcast feed of atleast one of the shows. You'll have to manually download the rest unforetuneatly.

The MP3 trial runs till the end of the year (I didn't have anything to do with that, it's one of several MP3 download trials the department is running, and it's an enormous achievement for such a huge broadcaster. Very proud to be working here at the moment). But there are these folks writing software to make the whole audio-online experimence much smoother, the Podcast folks, could we give that a go too? And that's what today is about [I work in the BBC's Radio and Music Interactive department, btw].

Please let me know if you find any bugs/problems with our Podcast feed. I'll get em fixed. We'll be updating it once a week for the remainder of the MP3 trial (it's the same distribution channel really; no more or less information, no archives). The trials are being done because it's important to know what people think and how the MP3s will be used: Please share your reactions and give us feedback (if there's anything that needs addressing immediately, feel free to mail me too).


MP3 Available: BBC - Radio Five Live - Fighting Talk

MP3 Available: BBC - 1Xtra - TX - Download this documentary

PODCAST! BBC - In our time - Podcast

More info on the "In our time" podcast BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - mp3 download

Via: cityofsound: Podcasting In Our Time

1 comment:

Michael Meiser said...

I posted the following words of encouragement to their comments page. Be sure to leave your own words of encouragement: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_emailthanks2.shtml

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Please see my post at http://mmeiser.snth.net/blog/2004/11/bbc-doing-trial-podcasting-of-several.html

THANK YOU!

I'm so excited you are the first major site to "get it". No other major website understands that Real Audio and Windows Media Player streaming formats are actually anti-listener. They discourage real world usage.

Audio broadcasting has gone backwards from walkman and portable radios with so called streaming media. How is one suppose to listen to a stream in their car. How is one suppose to listen when they're not on a fast internet connection, when they're on the train, the plane.... when they're walking around the office or down the street.

How is one suppose to archive a show for repeat listening? How is one suppose to reference a show? Where are the archival possibilities with a stream. The streaming media of Real and Win Media Player has long since passed it's day, it's time for us to kill it. The codecs are o.k., but leashing your viewers to your servers, the internet, and their computers is a horrible affront to radio, so little of our time is actually spent sitting in one place, the very portability of radio, music, and audio is what make it GREAT!

Podcasting IS the future. The future is about freedom not control. The user's ability to create their own playlist of shows and listen to them anytime and anywhere they want.

It can back up and support your radio program with global audience and best of all it does not undermine and in fact upholds and enhances an advertising supported business plan. There's so many new opportunities the trouble is going to be identifying them and identifying your new audience.

This is great! Now if only we can publicize it. I had a hard time digging through your site to find the one feed, and other content doesn't appear to have a feed. Can you please make a master podcast page that has a link to all the feeds and all the download pages for the shows so we can either subscribe or download the files individually.

Thank you! Michael Meiser
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