BBC said it'll pull radio streams from TuneIn to slurp more of your data but nobody noticed till Amazon put its foot in it The BBC has once again drawn ire from the loyal TV licence-paying public by pulling its live radio streams from third-party services. Perhaps listeners would have gone quietly over to the BBC Sounds app launched earlier this year – which is very much part of the motivation for the move – were it not for Old Auntie Beeb's bare- …
I can actually see the bright lights of the Belmont transmitter from home (okay it's distant, but they're there), but our DAB signal both at home and work are absolutely unusable.
iPlayer Radio was fantastic, but they've shafted that and now we have the so-called "BBC Sounds" app which appears to be the sort of project that a work experience kid would churn out. Dreadful UI and half the features of iPlayer missing.
Bad enough but when your radio station of choice is BBC6Music and is *only* available on DAB or app, it's kind of limiting.
I dunno, you'd think they were trying to reduce listenership so that they had an excuse to close 6 down, or something. They tried once before.
Couldn't agree more. I am also a 6 music devotee, accessed via iPlayer radio on my mobile phone. So I have lost the alarm function, and the ability to navigate the schedules in a sensible manner, thanks to the "improved" BBC sounds app. I had just started looking at using google assistant + tunein to create a recurring alarm, when I read this. Spent about an hour trying to get assistant to reliably play 6 Music by voice command - so that I could incorporate into an alarm - very hit or miss (mainly miss). Can just about make it play 6 music, but (get this!) ONLY when assistant manages to open the now defunkt iPlayer radio app, and makes it play 6 Music DESPITE the BBC sounds splash screen ;-)
Any tips for how to get google assistant to play 6 music on sounds app, and then to get it to do that within a daily alarm, very welcome!
Use a player that can deal with an http transport stream, say VLC, and feed it directly from BBC's CDN.
Or if you're on any sort of Unix terminal, something like the following works:
wget -O- "http://bbcmedia.ic.llnwd.net/stream/bbcmedia_6music_mf_p" | madplay
If you like 6 Music, FIP https://www.fip.fr plays an arguably better selection with almost no breaks at all.
You need the address of the BBC streams:
http://a.files.bbci.co.uk/media/live/manifesto/audio/simulcast/hls/uk/
plus sbr_low/, sbr_med/ or sbr-high/ for the data rate
plus ak/ or llnw/ (akamai or limelight)
plus the station:
bbc_radio_one.m3u8 (or 1xtra)
bbc_radio_two.m3u8
bbc_radio_three.m3u8
bbc_radio_fourfm.m3u8 (or fourlw or four_extra)
bbc_radio_file_live.m3u8 (or five_live_sports_extra)
bbc_6music.m3u8
Wow that a lot of hate for my troll comment. Obviously the biggest issue is the lack of bandwidth most radio stations provide, however for me DAB reception matches FM.
I listen to RadioX (Give them more bandwidth Global you cheap gits) so FM past Stansted Airport is non existant, app useless due to signal going in and out (Tried with O2 and EE, even worse on the train from London to Cambridge).
Because that's one of the reasons we pay the license fee.
It's supposed to maintain Britain and the English language on the international stage in a good light. It's a similar to a company offering something at a loss because there's an indirect benefit through brand awareness or something.
The BBC has traditionally had two functions. One is the UK's internal broadcaster. The other is the UK's external broadcaster, the British equivalent of the Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, the IBA (Israel, not UK commercial), ABC, CBC and countless other national broadcasters. I know that successive governments have degraded the entire concept of national identity and public service over the last 30-40 years -- its all "Little England, I expect what I pay for and I don't expect to have to pay for freeloaders" -- but the external profile of a country really is important. Radio programs are for the most part of "no commercial value" -- the money's in TV and the BBC is very active in making and marketing programs -- but services like Radio 3 and Radio 4 are of inestimable value to the profile of the UK. Lost that and the UK is going to become even more of a backwater than its currently trying to be.
Too right, given they make up the vast majority of the BBC's viewership, the average age of a BBC viewer is north of 62 by their own data....
So remind me again why the young, who on the whole don't watch the BBC, are often struggling to make ends meet, should pay for TV Licences for the over 75s who have triple locked state pensions, very generous workplace pension payouts, own their homes outright, receive free public transport and variuous other freebies?
Don't say "they worked hard", ALL of us work hard (and those currently working are often working harder than ever in zero hours work) what about WW1 and WW2 veterans, very few of whom actually got a free TV licence and who actually did fight for this country? Rather than anyone currently under 90 who lived through a generally very prosperous period in history, yet when you hear many of them talk, you'd think they had been first on the beaches at Normandy or in the trenches at the Somme....
"So remind me again why the young, who on the whole don't watch the BBC, are often struggling to make ends meet, should pay for TV Licences for the over 75s who have triple locked state pensions, very generous workplace pension payouts, own their homes outright, receive free public transport and variuous other freebies?"
You seem to have a rather rose tinted view of how pensioners live.
but the external profile of a country really is important.What's interesting is that with Brexit, assuming it goes through, it will become even more important as after brexit the UK will have to fight alone on the world stage, rather than as a member of a conglomerate, therefore will desperately need this exposure.
Because listening to radio doesn't require a license, both in UK and Italy.
Besides, in the good old days I listened to 198 kHz the Radio 4 emissions, and other station on medium and long wave from Italy. Nowadays I can't due the cheap switching power supplies and cheaper LED lamps that everyone is using now. If you like to listen to Italian programmes the strongest transmitter is on 900 kHz.
Next I bought a satellite dish and I was able to listen to BBC radio broadcasts on the wide beam on Astra 2 from Italy, and you can listen to radio programmes from Italy on Hotbird. Next BBC moved the radio on the Astra narrow beam, so no joy from Italy. You can watch also some TV programmes from Rai from UK using a satellite dish pointed to Hotbird.
PS: Rai didn't destroy the tapes of A like Andromeda https://www.amazon.it/come-Andromeda-Luigi-Vannucchi/dp/B0016GM3C0 - BBC destroyed them... Rai 1 - BBC 0 :-)
"Important data" being collected is clearly those UK users who havent paid for TV license, the premise being that no one would ever really opt out of the BBC service. Personally I have not watched read or listen to anything from the BBC for a few years now and do not miss it especially the propaganda of whichever party is currently in power and those minorities that use the BBC as their forum.
Offering BBC content for free to people outside of the UK allows the stupid continue to believe that the UK is still a world power so that has to continue regardless.
One wonders if the remaining license payers are getting value for money from this witch hunt, even if the dragnet actually caught anyone
"Important data" being collected is clearly those UK users who havent paid for TV license, the premise being that no one would ever really opt out of the BBC service.
It's pretty much the exact opposite. By moving all the radio stuff from iPlayer to Sounds, it means anyone can access the radio stuff without having to register with iPlayer and "agree" that they have a license. The license fee may well fund BBC Radio but you don't need a licence to use a radio,
The BBC's problem here is getting involved in content specific apps on a multitude of channels. It's a solved problem and they should be working with the TuneIns etc. to deliver, rather than half-assing crummy apps and spreading themselves too thinly. Really, no content creators should be doing that.
But in a post-broadcast landscape where gone are the days of broadcast surveys that showed clearly whether folks were watching or listening, they do need stats to measure whether they're producing material of interest. So many comments here seem critical not just of the slurp but also of the content. How are they supposed to know?
If the BBC's characterisation of TuneIn's willingness to provide the stats is fair (and the BBC's requests were fair with respect to the information actually required to analyse content "success"), then I think some criticism should go TuneIn's way as well.
"But in a post-broadcast landscape where gone are the days of broadcast surveys that showed clearly whether folks were watching or listening"
Having worked on the RAJAR listening surveys, they might have been clear, but they weren't particularly accurate.
"Your data probably isn't that interesting or important."
You're right, it's not. But the data fetishists and bean counters think it is. Sadly, what usually happens when too much data is gathered is that budget is allocated to the stuff with mass popularity and ends up in a race to the lowest common denominator. I expect the BBC will produce fewer innovative new programmes, promote fewer new bands, comedians, playwrights etc and more bland music shows.
It's all the same fad running wild through all business sectors: "make sure we can harvest peoples' life & habits in ways that are both easy and convenient for us".
Every business is waking up to the fact that there is money to be made selling customers' data, and since they all have "customers", they all have an additional, untapped revenue stream. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better: Expect having to sign in for everything, no matter how ordinary or unimportant...
I'm just sick of the constant plugging of BBC Sounds on BBC Radio. Plus if you do actually download a podcast that's got a bloody promo for BBC Sounds.
Also my mum when she heard one of the promos said what if you don't want a "music radio podcast"? What if you just want the News Quiz there's not much music in that is there.
This BBC Sounds fracas caused me to do the abnormal thing, and I went and read the Privacy Policy to find out what they were slurping. I was very surprised to read some of the content at;
http://www.bbc.co.uk/usingthebbc/privacy/privacy-policy/
Go down to section c & d and you find that they automatically collect date across all your devices, even if you are NOT logged into your BBC account. It seems they apparently collect data from;
your computer
your mobile
your TV
your tablet
your voice-enabled device
collecting;
IP (internet protocol) address
device ID
app ID
vendor ID
advertising ID
Presumably collating this to your DOB, Address and email stored in your BBC ID account.
The worse thing is in Section c where they tell you they monitor, even if you are not logged in, your use of other APPS to see if you mention the BBC. So if you say something about the BBC on Twitter they will collect your Twitter handle and associate it with your BBC ID and any other data they have slurped from you.
They also share some data with Crapita TV Licensing - which when the BBC ID thing started I thought they said they would not.
Seems that the BBC have become an associate of GCHQ!
About time the Information Commissioner had a look at this invasion of my privacy - there can be no justification to collect and collate this quantity of personal data - and only from UK residents apparently.
For the BBC News pages I use Waterfox. I only access the iPlayer using Chrome and do the minimal amount of registration to allow it to work - no "preferences".. It is hoped this separation of sources will limit their correlation between what I read and what I watch. Ublock Origin and Ghostery are also employed to filter the data they can filch.
BBC radio is supposed to be licence free - so forcing an iPlayer registration to listen is a bit off..
I pay a TV licence - I would like that to be sufficient for them not to mine my data otherwise for their profit.
"I pay for train tickets, but I am still subject to huge high-intensity video screens at stations pumping advertising at me non-stop."
And Shell filling station forecourts. They took away the simple display showing the £'s and Litres counting up too fast and replaced them with video screens which play adverts and the actual relevant data is a video overlay on the LCD panel. Worse, they have speakers and seem to be triggered by picking up the fuel nozzle. That's up to 22 pumps blaring out adverts, often the same adverts, all out of step with each other. If our company provided anything other than a Shell Fuel Card, I'd never darken their forecourts again.
Their podcasts are already being littered with "adverts" for their BBC Sounds app, and I for one will be damned if I go over to that instead of my favourite podcast app that collects all my feeds into one place, downloads and then plays them all perfectly well thank you.
I would rather go without than be saddled with Sounds.
And they turned off the iPlayer Radio app a few days ago, forcing people to use the BBC Sounds app instead. The reviews for the Sounds app in the Google Play store are overwhelmingly negative.
The iPlayer Radio app had a dark theme, the Sounds app is eyeball-burning bright. It auto-plays random shit.
"And they turned off the iPlayer Radio app a few days ago"
Not *quite*. On my old Android 4 tablet (which, barring a change of heart from the developers, will therefore never be able to experience the "delights" of the Sounds app), iPlayer Radio did start going no further on startup than the splash screen which said it *has now been replaced by* Sounds. However, based on some of the recent iPR review comments added to the play store by fellow disgruntled Sounds-phobes, it appears that simply uninstalling and reinstalling the iPR app is sufficient to give it a much needed stay of execution, with it reverting to showing the *will be replaced by* splash screen we've come to know and hate over recent months... For how much longer iPR will continue to work is anyone's guess, but as of right now it's still working just fine on the phone sat beside me as I type this.
"The iPlayer Radio app had a dark theme, the Sounds app is eyeball-burning bright."
The lack of a dark theme (essential for me given how much radio listening I do at night), combined with the smaller/thinner typeface used for all the programme details, makes using Sounds a genuine pain in the eyeballs for me. But sadly, this just seems to be the way of the world - a fresh faced team of new energetic developers, led by some manager with an ego the side of a planet, decide to reinvent the wheel in an attempt to attract new users, and in doing so they manage to alienate a sizeable chunk of their existing userbase by making changes which verge from the merely confusing all the way through to the openly user-hostile (*), and then sticking their fingers in their ears going "la la la, I can't hear you" whenever any slightly less than entirely positive reviews of their creation start to roll in.
(*) as someone's who's had to cope with dodgy colour vision since birth, and who's now also of an age where natural ageing is starting to take its toll, I have a particular dislike for any UI designer who chooses to create something which is obviously at odds with the wealth of freely available information explaining exactly why certain combinations of colours, certain sizes of typefaces etc. etc. are A Bad, Very Very Bad, Don't Even Think About Doing It If You're Not A Complete Idiot, Thing and should therefore not be used if you want your UI to be accessible. There simply is no excuse for getting it as badly wrong as so many UIs these days manage to achieve, and IMO part of the blame has to lie squarely at the feet of whichever idiot originally came up with the whole "let's make the UI as sparse as possible, with minimalistic visual cues on a pure white background, oh so clean looking, isn't it just heavenly, how can anyone think this is anything less than graphic design perfection in pixel form" idea now embraced pretty much wholeheartedly by Microsoft, Google and anyone else who thinks they have to create a lookalike UI in order to be considered hip and modern.
But that's a whole other rant for another day. Getting back to the Sounds app UI, I can summarise it in one word. Yuck. Too bright, difficult to read, and too much wasted space requiring more scrolling or too-ing and fro-ing from one screen to another to find the stuff you want. The iPR UI might not have been in the running for any "most beautiful looking UI of the 21st century" awards, but in certainly was a thing of beauty in terms of being a functional and useable UI.
As of last night, the old IPR app was still working on my old tablet (Android 4.4?)... just had click the X top right to get past the splash screen
Unfortunately my phone is running Pie and only Sounds is working... but I have seen reports of people uninstalling and reinstalling IPR and it starts working again (YMMV and I haven't tried it)
Sounds is pure poo... 'recommended for you' recommends just about everything I don't like (despite having imported dozens of 'my sounds' choices from the old app) and you have no option to dismiss them... every time you choose something from a list then hit 'back' you end up at the TOP of the list...
The old app was rated around 3.8... Sounds is 1.6 with a lot of people saying 'I'd give it zero if that was an option'
"just had click the X top right to get past the splash screen"
That's the "is going to be replaced" splash screen you get shown for starters. After a few weeks of that, my tablet then switched to the "has now been replaced by" version which doesn't have the X in the corner... At that point, a reinstall was sufficient to get it back to showing the former on startup again.
"The iPlayer Radio app had a dark theme, the Sounds app is eyeball-burning bright. It auto-plays random shit."
Funny how a free, open source programme such as Kodi can be infinitely configurable to the users tastes yet commercial apps like BBC Sounds or Netflix with paid developers can't be changed at all to suit the user. Like it or lump it.
I have noticed my podcast provider of choice doesn't now have the newer episodes of the one BBC podcast I listen to (infinite monkey cage)
There have been new eps this summer, but Google Podcasts doesn't seem to have them. PErhaps that tap is off already.
I presume the BBC's get-out is that registration is not necessarily "personally identifiable", given that you can (and should) use any throwaway e-mail address.
However, it does not really address the issue that it's quite happy to shovel this material out over the airwaves without knowing who's listening, so quite why, if you have the temerity to listen via the Internet, you have to accept telemetry via the Internet is not clear. And bloody iPlayer trailers.
Cough, get_iplayer, cough.
You're right in principle that an email address can be personal data (not "PII" - there's no such definition under the current legislation), but only if it can be associated with a personal identity by the data controller.
So AB12345@some_free_mail_service.com is probably not personal data unless combined with other information to uniquely identify a person. However, aggregating other data associated with that email address would make the entire aggregate become personal data the moment the aggregate is sufficient to identify the individual. On the other hand, an email address such as Anne.Other@some_free_mail_service.com is more likely to be personal data in its own right.
But the name is not the necessarily the issue. If I live on a street with a common postcode for 20 houses, that postcode is not personal data. Supposing I restore steam engines, that's not personal data either. But both these pieces of information together may be personal data if I'm the only one in the street that restores steam engines, even if my name is not included in the record.
I'm not so sure about that. The two pieces of information together assumes that somebody knows that Joe Bloggs at No.22 restores steam engines. Now thats 4 pieces of information that is required to personally identify you.
If you had kept it a secret that you restored steam engines and then based on your two pieces of information nobody could identify you as the subversive steam engine restorer.
I guess what it shows is that any information can potentially become personal information if there are enough individual bits of separate information to form a profile.
Conclusion: if you are paranoid never tell anybody anything. On the other hand you are just a speck that lives for a tiny length of time on a tiny planet in a vast multiverse where you and your information or in fact this entire planet really don't matter. It's a case of perspective.
So these services don't need an IP address then? since not paying for a TV license is a crime they just contact your UK ISP and ask for subscriber details."
Even if the above were true, it's been many, many years since a license was required to operate a radio receiver and you still don't need a licence to listen to BBC Sounds.
Easy answer here, stop listening at all to BBC content.
There is nothing the BBC broadcast on radio which does not have an alternate equivalent on TuneIn. When the BBC see their listening numbers are dramatically falling (online) they will realise the error of their ways. This is a blatant attempt to bolster a new content service they are offering to justify the expense of developing it at the tv license payer's expense.
Oh and write to your MP complaining about this... The BBC is doing less and less to justify the license fee "tax" and ultimately the only thing they will respond to is the threat of losing license fee money.
Totally agree, paid "by the people for the people" seems to have lost its direction massively and we find ourselves rarely watching terrestrial TV and ironically tunein was first time in years we had engaged with BBC radio due to amazon echo... Only to have it blocked as a license payer!! Happy to ignore it altogether and let them seal their own fate... Idiots.
BBC-rexit!
I've found the TuneIn streams to be generally more reliable. I quite like the I-Player Radio app, but it does struggle with cache invalidation and loves to switch to my mobile data for some reason. But BBC Sounds could have, and probably did come, from Nathan Barley and the Suga Rape crew. Programming matters, even when we're mainly time-shifting.
Sonos via TuneIn still is on as is TuneIn web interface.
Google speaker still cranking it out via signed in account.
Alexa connects via sounds, play PODS as well, I initially had to log in though.
Cable system has all the BBC free to air TV and radio stations including the red button all in super HD.
Mind you I cant down load BBC sounds, its geo blocked as is the sun at mo !
BBC scrapping red button despite it being scaleable broadcast. Web news and streams are complementary, not a replacement.
Online BBC became unusable years ago in Ireland, even www.bbc.co.uk is now blocked outside UK.
100% R4 LW coverage and after dark, BBC regional & 5 Live.
100% Satellite FTA too.
How does "user data" help them stream Radio 4?
They managed to broadcast it via am/fm radio for many years without any user data whatsover.
Anyone remember Mike Corley (aka MI5guy) who spammed usenet about 20 years ago claiming that the BBC were spying on him via his television set. We all thought he was completely bonkers. This is now actually happening for real. The BBC are spying on us via our television sets.
When you enable the BBC skill in Alexa, it demands you link to your BBC account. However...
1. If you already have the skill enabled, disable it. This will also unlink it.
2. Say to Echo device "Alexa play BBC Radio 4" (or similar). It will ask you if you want to enable the BBC skill.
3. Say "Yes". The skill will be enabled and will work. But it won't be linked to your BBC account.
Not to mention BBC Sounds does not work on my iPad because it is 6 Years old. But they are ending iPlayer Radio which has a superior interface and an alarm function.
Apparently the BBC Spent a fortune on the Sounds App (I have it on Android0 but it looks like it was knocked up by a couple of school kids for an IT assignment.
So does the Sounds website, it's full of pictures (for radio programmes!) so that you have to wade through a dozen sparse-content pages instead of just scanning down an iplayer list.
There was a time that the BBC engineering department led the world. Now it can't even follow it usefully.
Go into your echo device settings, and and device options, and pick a non-UK language. For example, English (Australia/New Zealand).
Once the new language has downloaded and your device has switched, you will find that BBC on TuneIn works again.
Note:
if you just say "Alexa, play Radio 4", it will still default to BBC Sounds.
But if you say "Alexa, play Radio 4 on TuneIn", it will play on TuneIn.
If you say "Alexa, wake me up to Radio 4 on TuneIn", it will ask you what time, and then wake you up with Radio 4.
If you say "Alexa, play Radio 4 on <name of multi-group>", it will play on the whole group, even though only one device has been changed.
Obviously, this is not ideal, as it may affect other country-specific skills that you use.
But I currently have an English (Canada) Dot running in my lounge, as well as my other devices - normally muted, but available for setting up multi-room playing.
I stopped listening to the BBC a long time ago, and I rarely ever bother to watch broadcast TV... I use a VPN which the BBC block you from watching/listening to anything via iplayer regardless of being signed in or not... I pay my frickin license fee only for them to do anything they can to block me from protecting my privacy.
I think I may just have to cancel my license... I have no ariel to the TV in my house, I got rid of sky/virgin years ago... So WTF am I paying a license at all?
" use a VPN which the BBC block you from watching/listening to anything via iplayer regardless of being signed in or not..."
Funny, I've never had a problem listening to or watching the BBC via VPN (or previously via satellite) and I've not paid for a licence in almost 30 years. Thanks everyone!
You might be lucky with your choice of VPN... But mine gets blocked on Prime video, netflix and iplayer.
Who do you use, mine isn't due for renewal until next march, but I'd certainly be prepared to try an alternative service providing they don't keep logs and respect peoples privacy like my current one does... and doesn't cost much more than I pay now (about £3 a month, and I get really good speeds with no capping, throttling or anything).
I used to listen to Radio 2 and 4 in the car and Radio 6 on the iPlayer.Plus on occasion I'd watch some BBC drama . I tried to send a message the "Feedback on R4" but heaven knows where they've hidden it :( My main gripes are these.
1) The "breaking news banner that does not go away even after you've read the article. Arrgh!
2) The "BBC is better if you sign in message box". No BBC all my cookies get deleted when I leave Firefox. Just feck off!
3) Autoplay enabled by default. If I click on a link for a volcano I really don't want to see every eruption in history. See 2)
4) Controversial; The BBC seems to have become the LBGT news. I don't have a problem with that but why not create a gay channel for those who want that group of news in one place.
5) Reason for rant; I grew up in a Council flat in a London Borough who decided that they didn't have enough gay tenants. I knew a lot of them. So they Council bumped them up the housing list and they all got flats. Now I could have lied and said that "I'm living with my parents but they don't understand me". Or some other bullshit. Or if my sexual preferences are reasons for housing what if I say that I can only get satisfaction from a donkey (OK I'm making this up). Will I get a council flat? I doubt it. It hasn't happened yet. </rant>
I'm happy to be corrected, but I don't think a VPN will help you.
At present, at least, Alexa seems to be identifying you location - for TuneIn purposes - not by your IP address or even your device's configured location, but by the voice language being used.
Select English (United Kingdom) as your language, and TuneIn fails to play any BBC Live content.
Select any other English language, and TuneIn works.
this is not going to end well. At best you'll get a canned statement, let me guess, some waffle along the lines that "the BBC takes every care to make sure that it offers the best possible experience for its license-paying listeners. The end.
At worst, you'll be banned from the launch of all new (and exciting) bbc products, for life.
As Title.
I DONT buy the "we need data to adequately serve you" NO radio organisation exist that will ever adequately serve everyone especially not me.
I already pay for the BBC so they have all the data they need. They may not understand that they are in danger of becoming irrelevant by alienating thier audiences - people like me. I dont need my data mining by some child in an office who thinks it is vital to broadcasting. In reality they have little interest in actually pleasing people, its just an excersize in allocating us to groupings to use in bolstering thier case for the next hike in the licence extortion.
The BBC is out of touch and irrelevant, time to cut it free and let it sink or swim on its merits - And I never thought the day would come when I would say that.
For my money - this is a breach of the charter and they should be stripped of it.
Bye Bye Ken Bruce I'll miss popmaster - ive been listening to that segment for years, but not any more, there are other stations - not to mention about 17 days worth of music on my phone.
This....
"The BBC is out of touch and irrelevant, time to cut it free and let it sink or swim on its merits - And I never thought the day would come when I would say that."
.... is completely technically impossible. As Sky has demonstrated for years, and Netflix are discovering.
Been discussed to death.
I don't think so. You only need a TV license if you want to watch any form of TV at the point it is broadcast or if you want to consume any content via the iPlayer platform.
So if you want to watch the 6pm BBC or Sky news broadcasts at 6pm (i.e. a live broadcast) then you need a license. If you want to watch the 6pm news broadcast via catchup via ANY method, then you don't need a license.
I've not required a license for 5 years now, so I can't remember if it covers "downloading BBC content" but I'd assume downloading content would not be at the point of broadcast - so I'd assume not.
Happy to be corrected.
my question was not about whether downloading beeb content off "other sources" requires a license. I wanted to know if, having paid their license, user can LEGALLY access bbc content via "other sources", or whether he / she would break a law, i.e. they are only legally allowed to access that content through bbc-controlled means.
It does - using BBC iPlayer requires a licence (no matter how you're using it i.e. catchup or live broadcast). Any other service requires a licence for broadcast only.
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/bbc-iplayer-and-the-tv-licence
Dear BBC,
I'm prepared to let you have all the information you want in return for making programmes that I want to watch or hear.
What? You'll make lowbrow dramas about cops and murders and I'll bloody well like it?
Also why are there so many trailers for other programmes? 6Music has a trailer every thirty minutes (on average.) It's bloody annoying. Just when Gideon Coe has set the mood on comes A BLOODY TRAILER and the mood is killed. And then there's the news, and the interviews, and the film reviews and Martin Freeman rattling on about The Beatles and Steve Lamacq saying 'Glasto' and all of them saying 'the legendary Maida Vale studio' and 'genre' . Honestly it's getting beyond a joke.
And after all that it's still my favourite radio station.
A BLOODY TRAILER
On the BBC World Service, they often name check the service in what seems like within 30 seconds, or ad-nauseam mention that the programme is coming to you live from the centre of the news room at broadcasting house in London.
In the case of name checking the station, I can understand that for a service that goes out across the world where people will be listening in for specific news bulletins or programmes, and need to be able to determine that they have tuned in. But who cares if it comes from the centre of the news room at broadcasting house or the BBC director general's private wash room - just get on with the content without filling up the time with "noise"
.. "Points of View" but not for long. or maybe footy world cup yonkers ago.. decades?
License is an unecessary expense and grief. Part of license fee is spent onletters "occupier we are starting an investigation". those go straight into the bag to hand them upon visit. The letters are accusatory, and STRONG scare tactics, that are implying the householder of engaging in serious criminal activity.. (didn't we have laws passed that prevent remote selling of this nature?) and infuriating as such. innocent til PROVEN is the law of our land i believe?
i also have testicles.. does that make me a rapist? i have knives in the kitchen, i suppose i am a serial killer then? I even have past "best before" packets of mild chilli con carne mix in the kichen cupboard, yup: cultivating and storing for future distribution, mind expanding narcotics for use via nasal ingestion.. it's criminal the activity they get up to to scare even more money from people. over 75's free tv licence? not any more. prrphh. maddening money grabbing, wasting and shady distribution now. decades ago, it was respectable and people were honoured and pleased to part with exortion because the return was credible. Why does a broadcaster need to know anything (name, age, gender, employed, etc etc) about who watches things? just put an 0800 number at the end of the broadcast ..people that dont like the program will quickly get in touch. that should be it. end of. no more needed.
BBC is more than UK news (it mostly sub contract production to 3rd party producers, hat trick etc.. who also want profit!) and has a great many commercial operations, which are entangled financially difficult to separate. example: . DVD of a program bought from BBC worldwide was conceived and produced etc with taxpayer money. i mean license payer money. then sold at profit, funds of which are ingested back to the Worldwide distribution arm. Another: bbc magazines like top gear, these don't feed themselves. they include exclusive (fee payer financed) content. but cost the reader twice if they have purchased a license.
BBC should just get ad's or a card only viewing subscription. OR even, do a SKY and pay subscription AND get ad's for that subscription.
Personally, i dont want or need BBC.
Sorry for the fucking rant.
I can only add to the dismay of other posters.
Listeners have listened for years on LW MW FM DAB and Freeview without the BBC collecting data yet they remove the most modern convenient way of listening for the license holders but allow foreign users still to access the stations with all the features of TuneIn
They even advertise for us to listen via smart speakers but now I can't wake up to it via my Amazon Echo - nor can I play it in both Living room and Kitchen at the same time. Come on BBC we had a perfectly good working solution and you take it away just so you can get some data on who is listening. But now you don't have the listeners!! Please reverse this stupid decision immediately.
Truly. I've not paid the license fee, listened or watched anything BBC related for about 5 years now. And I don't miss it one bit. They lost their way as a "public service broadcaster" years ago when they decided they wanted to be a Netflix or similar and started wasting millions of £'s of free money in trying to "compete" in that arena, rather than providing that core public service that I was prepared to continue funding.
Since I discovered internet radio I've found so many better channels for music, news, and other things of interest that don't require any form of registration, login or such like. I get that there are many people that rely on the BBC for this sort of stuff, but as the years pass, that number will drop and drop to the point that the only possible model for the BBC will be to move to a fully commercial operation. Then they can do what they want... and I still won't care.
BBC news been on a long decline (miss Eddie Mair subtle wit & skewering of interviewees, though at least clueless on anything sciece related JH finally gone from R4 now)
I used to watch a bit of BBC3 content when it was on Freeview,they had a few OKish comedies / comedy dramas, then it became online only and I have never watched any BBC3 content since.
I go online, but will not be watching "TV" online as therss more interseting things to do on computer than watch TV.
.. My TV consumption is mainly the cliche of tired at the end of the day slump on the sofa and see if anything is on to amuse / interest me briefly before I go to bed (occasional content recorded on PVR for later viewing, mainly films I never saw on first release and have finally made their way to freeview, so if any PVR content will watch a bit of that rather than channel hop)
Then this week I had rare experience of trying to consume BBC TV online. I was working at the home computer but fancied streaming the world athletics champs so I could watch women's 100m final live, so went to BBC site and it wanted me to sign up to iPlayer with an email address to watch the live sport .. so I just walked downstairs & turned on TV for a couple of minutes rather than give PII of email address.
Partner does use iPlayer (don't know their credentials if anyone wonders why did not use them to sign in "above"), but partner gets really irritated at all the trailers that they have to skip through at start of content view (as navigating iPlayer to find the content they want has already exposed them to lots of in your face "highlight" content the BBC wants to promote, while making easy search for just what you want very much a secondary function)
Mainly consume BBC radio on radio (FM or DAB depending on reception) so happily not had to deal with dubious sounds app.
They dropped "The Cash Peters USA TV Slot" from Up All Night on Radio 5 Live at 02:30 Wednesday Mornings a few years ago. When they did that I stopped listening to 5 Live and switched to Radio 4. I very rarely change my radio station so that was a big thing for me.
I was disappointed when Eddie left PM but I don't get to listen then anymore since I got my new job.
Privacy, resilience and scale are why actual real broadcast (AM, FM, DTT, Satellite*) beats Internet streams.
The old programs should be available as as downloads or archive, and a charge isn't unreasonable (Like DVDs, CDs, Cassettes). Any capture of user information other than temporary data for payment is evil and can easily become the tool of a corrupt government.
(*DTT makes the inferior DAB obsolete. Neither replaces local radio on FM as they are designed for National networks, esp if using SFN)
Having gone through that already with the similarly badly redesigned BBC News app, and the redesign of the News website before that, I hold out the square root of naff all hope that the Sounds devs would be any more receptive to any form of feedback that included even a sliver of neutral, let alone negative, content regarding their beloved new baby.
However, in the unlikely event that they manage to prove me wrong here, thanks for a reminder of the feedback link - I'll be making use of that later once I'm sat in front of my PC...
So what heading do I choose? If my complaint is about BBC sounds, I'm on the wrong website. If it's about a BBC app, well it isn't and I'm in the wrong area. If it's about a channel.....I'm complaining wrong again. Thanks for the link, but the beeb have structured it so my complaint is screened out
The BBC fail as a public service broadcaster on so many measures.
I stopped paying the usurious licence fee in the early 2000s, no regrets at all - the biased broadcasting corporation is infested with woke aresholes and much their content has become predictable, preachy, sanctimonious and unwatchable/unlistenable by me. At least James O'Brien and other broadcasters on LBC don't pretend to be unbiased...
The few admittedly high quality documentaries I am missing on release are not worth enduring the other repellent content for. I'll catch them up online in various ways.
Vote with your wallets - stop paying the licence fee, stop using the BBC, it only encourages the precious darlings.
Could be worse... Haven't used it for a while so have given it a quick go, I was expecting a barely usable app going by some of the response on here but it seems to do what it needs to. There's a choice of radio stations, the ability to listen to past shows and download for 'offline' listening. For me it doesn't need to do much more than that.
Regarding sharing of data, the BBC wants to know what is being listened to and where they are to determine what's popular. What a shocker... 3rd party sites don't want to share this so the BBC doesn't want to share it's programming anymore.
The fact that it does at least work is what persuaded me to rate it 2* on the play store. However, the fact that it does so in a less useable way than the iPR app is one of the reasons why so many of still don't rate it as an even being average let alone in any way good.
On top of that, the use of a smaller and less contrasty typeface makes it harder to read the text content compared with the clarity of the typeface used in iPR - I appreciate the Beeb are trying to encourage a new generation of younger listeners to try out what BBC Radio has to offer, but this shouldn't be at the expense of those of us in the later age brackets who are suffering to a greater or lesser extent the age-related loss of visual acuity and for whom the new UI is therefore genuinely harder to use.
And on top of everything is the obsoleting of thousands of older Android and iOS devices which are still perfectly capable of running iPR, but which are not supported at all by Sounds. Now, if the Beeb would allow us to skip paying the licence fee for a years so we could all go out and buy a Sounds-conpatible device, then that would earn them another star from mem. But just shutting off thousands of listeners and glibly suggesting that they can simply start listening via the website or by upgrading their device, rather than making any obvious effort to try and make Sounds compatible with a wider range of devices, means that Sounds will never, can never, be considered in any way a fit for purpose replacement for iPR.
So no,.I'm not even remotely surprised that 1* reviews continue to roll in for Sounds.
The BBC Sounds app is so crap.
Then again, TuneIN with it's social media integration is crap too which is why I've kept a much older version installed so I can listen to BBC streams and custom urls, something you can't do so easily with the newer version.
I'll have to check to see if I can still find media links to add BBC streams to VLC or something similar.
Well, I’ve complained to the BBC about the piece of garbage they call Sounds and that they can’t have an alarm function it’s too difficult for them to program! Sounds UI is atrocious, as someone with a visual impairment I find it laughable you have this floating element when live music is being played. iPlayer Radio was functional but hey! We need to get down with the kids to show we know how they think? I’m all for progress but Sounds isn’t the way forward. They should sack the jerk who ok’d this garbage and the design and programming team for having the audacity to think this is a quality piece of work. Quit while you’re ahead and give us back iPlayer Radio!
I do not any longer pay the BBC tax, both because I no longer own a television capable of getting a signal* or a device to do pass it on and for Scottish political reasons (I dinnae want to pay to fibbed tae).
*There's an old little cathode ray TV in a cupboard kept because it has the only device capable of rewinding a VCR tape. I can also should I wish play games via it and the PS1. I notified them of it through the proper channels and have to date not been pestered by them. The flickering light from the living rom is the rippling water in the old plastic tank used for raising daphnia and copepods to feed my tropical fish in other tanks. Proper appreciative they are too.
I was unable to view any BBC News website video footage this year whilst on holiday in Crete.
Just a message informing me that "this content is not available in your country".
I am from the UK so what is the problem?
Plenty of adverts though on the "advert free" BBC News website.
I accessed Sky News for the fortnight I was in Crete and guess what, I now access Sky News every day instead of the BBC.
That went well didn't it !
Dear Auntie
Thanks for sacking off the way I listen to radio, I dont own a 'real' radio nut use my phone, worked for me for years, I pay your licence fee for which you churn out hours and hours or crap, starring people who I dont know and have never heard of, but are "allegedly" famous struggling to cook a fish finger. If I wanted to watch a cookery program I'd buy a copy of Mrs Beaton's book. All I want to do is listen to Radio 4, and TMS via my internet streaming service of choice, oh and by the way thesehave also been going down the bog in pursuit of your 'Younger audiences" approval.
love and hugs
Brush
The world is moving towards sharing data and interoperability. The day that the BBC becomes a paid subscription or advertisement funded service just to a big step closer, becasue that is how they are behaving.
I don't want my licence fee being spent on a second rate app when there are better apps out there. It's OK to innovate but you better to sure that you can build something better than is currently available so that users move to it by choice rather than blocking access. Absurd that non licence fee payers outside the UK are unaffected. Its a even more incoherent decision than the Labour Party view on Brexit.
The number of comments and complaints on the BBC blog is now up to 1334 with new complaints added every few minutes.
I have a couple of Bose Soundtouch systems which I use to as streaming devices, both are continuing to receive BBC channels.
I have done some research and according to the BBC website the change is only applicable to 'smart' devices. It may even just be restricted to Alexa. \I must admit my research concluded once I realised I was OK.
I have Tune In on my Windows Phones. The one running 8.1 won't connect to BBC channels. The one running Windows 10 Mobile works fine. I log in to both phones with my Microsoft account, so the BBC know who I am and where.
There's no license fee for radio, and I have no idea how the BBC benefits by reducing its audience on new media. It's not losing revenue, its not losing data, but it insists on losing audience.
BBC have lost listeners as a result of this change as I now listed to LBC who have just announced a significant increase in their listening figures. i wonder why? The petition on change.org to reverse this decision is now over 3000 - https://www.change.org/p/bbc-restore-bbc-radio-streams-to-tunein. Ridiculous and absurd situation that non-license fee payers can continue to access BBC radio via Tune In but license fee payers cant.
There are 1000's of angry listeners being totally ignored by the BBC over this farce. Instead of showing any leadership the overpaid Directors have buried their heads up their own a**es and are refusing to talk to the public. Considering that there is not a single positive response across the three blogs of 2700 comments, and over 3200 signed up to change.org, the BBC are showing a level of arrogance and contempt towards the public that is utterly disgusting.
Considering the BBC are breaching their own Charter and remit, and the Equality Act 2010 by indirect discrimination towards those with a visual impairment, you would think they would just apologise for the mistake and reinstate the streams. Unfortunately in the modern BBC they are blinded by their own self importance to care.
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