Changes to live BBC radio streams

[Tim Curtis]

It seems like classic monopoly behavior. In the absence of competition, monopolies always move to exert total control to maximize share holder and executive profit. They typically put out very clever PR that thoroughly obscures the truth. It happens all the time here in the US. It's a constant battle to maintain competitive markets.

[TheOldPresbyope]

Whatever the motivation of the BBC bookkeepers, it's hard for me not to feel nostalgic whenever I see or hear "BBC". As a young radio experimenter in the late '50s, I loved tuning into their overseas radio broadcasts from this side of the pond. At my college radio station, we all strove to sound like BBC news readers.

sic transit gloria mundi!

Regards,
Kent

[the_bertrum]

It seems like classic monopoly behavior. In the absence of competition, monopolies always move to exert total control to maximize share holder and executive profit. They typically put out very clever PR that thoroughly obscures the truth. It happens all the time here in the US. It's a constant battle to maintain competitive markets.

Except the BBC is neither a monopoly, nor profit making.  They are funded through, what is to all intents and purposes, taxation and are hemmed about with all sorts of rules to ensure they do nothing anti-competitive.  Part of those rules is to ensure that they have control over where their content is consumed and that's what's driving these changes.

There is a for profit called BBC Worldwide, which is a proper commercial organisation, but these streams are not from there.

[Tim Curtis]

It seems like classic monopoly behavior. In the absence of competition, monopolies always move to exert total control to maximize share holder and executive profit. They typically put out very clever PR that thoroughly obscures the truth. It happens all the time here in the US. It's a constant battle to maintain competitive markets.

Except the BBC is neither a monopoly, nor profit making.  They are funded through, what is to all intents and purposes, taxation and are hemmed about with all sorts of rules to ensure they do nothing anti-competitive.  Part of those rules is to ensure that they have control over where their content is consumed and that's what's driving these changes.

There is a for profit called BBC Worldwide, which is a proper commercial organisation, but these streams are not from there.

Consider that if the BBC is not a monopoly there would exist comparable competition and viable user choice, and non-profits rake in tons of cash same as for-profit organizations, they essentially only differ in how they are funded.

I suppose my perspective could be the result of the crazy scheme used in the US to provide public service broadcasting. It involves 3 non-profit organizations including minimally tax funded CPB and mostly listner-funded PBS and NPR stations. There are 100's of PBS TV stations and 1000's of NPR radio stations. NPR radio stations typically offer free globally accessible radio streams. PBS TV stations have geo-restrictions on what can be viewed globally or live,  but I think anything on http://pbs.org that can be viewed is free and without any log in or account required.

Sounds a lot like the moOde funding model ;-)

[the_bertrum]

Oh yeah, the BBC rake in tons of cash alright.  Every household in Britain (with a few exceptions) has to pay a Netflix Premium sized subscription every month even if they don't use the BBC services (although, once again there are very few who don't use them).  It's this guaranteed funding that has the competition here in the UK up in arms.  "How can we compete", they ask "when The Beeb gets millions no matter how many folk watch, and we have to scrape around for advertisers?".  The solution is that the Government restricts what the BBC can do.  The BBC could give away all their content on free streams to anyone who wants them, and use that dominance to flatten all competition, but they are not allowed to, hence these restrictions.
So rather than this being a monopoly trying to extract more revenue (no one pays extra to use the BBC sounds app for example, on which all these streams can be got for free as long as you are in the UK), it a actually a potential monopoly being forced to curtail it's provision to give space for the competition to thrive.  That said, the "competition" in this case is other large commercial broadcasters, and most of those get assistance of some sort too.

There is something to be said for the NPR/PBS funding model, they of course have a good reason to get their streams listened to by as many people as possible (more listeners = more potential donors).  There are some really innovative (and hyper local) offerings on US Public Radio that there isn't much space for here in the UK.  There are local independent broadcasters, but no where the scale and reach that you get over the pond.

Of course, this whole debate is moot now since some clever folks have worked out new URLs that work (I suspect they work because the Akamai magic allows the BBC to show they have control over who's using them).

Sounds a lot like the moOde funding model ;-)

That would be the no-profit raking in tons of cash model?

[Tim Curtis]

lol, you know of course we do moOde for the sheer pleasure of it and as long as a few bucks keep coming in to cover the material costs the project can keep going. As far as tons of cash go I've only seen that in the movies.

Great analysis and case closed on BBC. Hopefully the new set playable URL's won't change anytime soon.

[Tim Curtis]

Btw, do the 320K UK stations display the currently playing song title?

[steve4star]

Btw, do the 320K UK stations display the currently playing song title?

Unfortunately not, I suspect the metadata is only in the BBC Sounds app

Code:

$ mpc --format "Name: [%name%] Artist:[%artist%] Album: [%album%] Title: [%title%]" current
Name:  Artist: Album:  Title: BBC Radio 2 (320K)

[Tim Curtis]

Ok, thanks for confirming that Title tag is set to station name. I see same for the worldwide stations.