Getting the space to innovate
I said last week that we would be experimenting with new and different types of content. I want to tell you about one way we’ve been doing that — podcasts.
Podcasts aren’t new. The first podcasts — as we now know them — were made in 2004. The same year, the BBC made Radio 4’s In Our Time available as a podcast. More BBC titles followed and we have had some global hits. Across the world, almost 50 million episodes of A History of the World in 100 Objects have been downloaded. In Our Time gets around 2.5 million downloads a month worldwide. The BBC’s biggest podcast — Global News from the World Service — regularly gets 10 million downloads a month. Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, which has had a cult podcast following since 2005, gets almost a million downloads a month.
But until recently our regulation constrained us. We were required to concentrate on releasing radio programmes on demand, rather than making original podcasts — a subtle, but vital distinction.
Now we’ve been given scope to experiment. We’ve commissioned eight new podcasts, which you’ll start to see appearing over the next few months. We have also done a lot more to curate our output in a way that podcast listeners would expect and welcome. Have a listen to the way we talk about the Radio 4 documentaries in our Seriously strand or the way Comedy of the Week is introduced.
The first new podcasts are doing well — Beyond Reasonable Doubt? is a true crime podcast from 5Live, which Apple have put at the top of the UK iTunes chart. We have released 4 episodes in one go too. Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy which started as a podcast idea and is now on air has been doing well since its launch in February.
We’ve learned two interesting things.
If we stop innovating it’s bad for the whole sector
I’m sure there were good reasons for the regulation that limited us doing podcasts that weren’t for broadcast. But it had a consequence; it stopped us innovating. Having been first into podcasts, the BBC had to narrow its focus.
As time went on however I suspect that harmed the UK podcast market. Podcasts are growing fast in the UK — with 8% of us listening to one every week. But in the States that’s 15% and in Sweden it’s even higher. If we’d been pushing innovation in podcasts since 2004 we could have stimulated the UK market even further. That would have been good for audiences and good for companies producing podcasts in the UK. Audiences adopting a technology early helps grow a bigger market, which makes it possible for companies to innovate in that country and then export what they’ve learned.
With the iPlayer, the BBC helped create a market — with podcasts, we’d like to help accelerate the growth of that market. I’d be interested in any views people have for how we do that.
Innovation is often about the small things
What makes it hard for incumbents like us to innovate is often the small things. With our podcasts, one barrier is time — because a scheduled programme really does have to be ready on time, anything made only for on-demand can fall to the bottom of the to-do list. So, we’re thinking about how we manage our workforce to support podcast innovation.
We’re learning more about podcasts all the time. We’ll share more of that over the coming months.
