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The BBC has got into a habit of keeping some of its biggest audience podcasts locked into BBC Sounds for weeks, before making them available to other platforms. The obvious ambition is to drive more people into downloading the BBC Sounds app; the figure of weekly users seems to be a Big KPI on Mr Davie's dashboard. 

Does it make sense as a long-term strategy ? Former Beeboid James Cridland patrols the global public service horizon in this post, and says, firmly, No.

I've been fumbling for some sort of analogy here. If the parallel were to be magazines, could you imagine BBC Publishing trying to set up a chain of dedicated high street shops, selling only BBC magazines, and making them available via WHSmith, Menzies and independent newsagents a month later ? 

If you're not always on the big platforms, don't you have to work much much harder at discoverability ? Well, not if you're Auntie, where peaktime advertising is free. Yet the BBC is also keen on making money from the pre-roll ads that come on other platforms.  This enormous anomaly ought to come to light in any serious review of the BBC's scope and funding. Remember, at the moment, you don't need a licence fee to listen to BBC Radio or BBC Sounds. 

The BBC has yet to align and articulate its Great Podcast Surge with underlying mission statements and values more detailed than 'reaching more people'.  The BBC's other big driver is 'reaching underserved audiences'. Ofcom's podcast survey of 2024 shows 32% of regular podcast listeners are ABC1, compared with 17% C2DE, suggesting the BBC is once again 'super-serving' an existing audience.