One stop shopping

The BBC continues its policy of trying to make you buy its newspapers only from its newstands. listen to its programmes from its platform, BBC Sounds. 

The news comes from Mary Hough, (BA Politics and International Studies, Warwick) who is titled Head of Growth and Discovery for BBC Sounds. Mary came from The Eater, and was previously Senior Web Manager at The New Yorker, Online Content Lead at Obama for America, and Online Content Manager and Writer for the Democratic National Committee Sounds

She says "This latest move follows an initial trial which began in 2022 and saw a small number of radio programmes made available for on-demand listening on BBC Sounds first before release onto RSS. The trial titles included Desert Island Discs, In Our Time, BBC Inside Science, The Infinite Monkey Cage, and Friday Night Comedy. Over the six-month trial period these titles brought 218,000 new and lapsed listeners to BBC Sounds and received 17 million plays on-platform. Listeners to these titles were also more likely to become regular listeners on BBC Sounds than on average. This growth on Sounds had a marginal impact on RSS where the majority of listeners continued to listen to the podcasts. As a result of the trial, Ofcom agreed that the BBC can continue to choose how to publish all our podcasts."

"Titles which were included in our successful trial, and which will continue to be available on BBC Sounds first, include Desert Island Discs, Moneybox, In Our Time, BBC Inside Science, The Infinite Monkey Cage, and Friday Night Comedy. These will continue to be available on BBC Sounds first, and Friday Night Comedy will now become available on third party platforms after a shorter seven-day window instead of the previous 28 days.

"Additional titles which will now be available on BBC Sounds before anywhere else include The Life Scientific, This Cultural Life, Sliced Bread, Evil Genius with Russell Kane, Comedy of the Week, You’re Dead to Me, and series two of The Coming Storm with Gabriel Gatehouse."