The BBC’s audio dilemma: podcast or no podcast?

What is podcastable? It is a question I can imagine having been circulated in some dressing or another at BBC board meetings.

The attitude within Auntie seems to be just about everything at the moment.

Perhaps the signs have been there for a while. They did after all rename their audio service app from iPlayer Radio to Sounds, an evident sign they were shifting into the podcast landscape.

The Guardian’s Jim Waterson has also recently reported that a number of the corporation’s radio programmes are being moved to its commercial arm, BBC Studios.

Its productions, including Desert Island Discs and In Our Time, will make the transition in an attempt to target listeners outside of the British Isles and increase profits.

The proof on this one will likely come in the pudding. Undue concern seems uncalled for. After all, the BBC are not talking about pulling the plug on these sacred programmes. Nor are they suggesting format changes. But it is a sign of a clamour to lean into the market.

As well as a tendency to de-radiofy some of its audio output, the BBC has also experimented with fitting podcasts into more traditional radio show formats.

Fi Glover and Jane Garvey’s Fortunately, originally a podcast, was soon converted into radio form. Whilst the pair have suggested it didn’t change their outlook, it inevitably changes the audience.

And with Glover and Garvey now with competitor Times Radio, hosting a separate radio show and podcast distinctive in style, the Beeb may well be wondering if they have misread the room.

Whilst the organisation is working to shore up its commercial sustainability, it is not so sure of its public service remit

It is perhaps indicative of a wider and existential problem at the BBC, one pointed out frequently by Roger Bolton (formerly of Feedback, now host of his own podcast Beeb Watch): whilst the organisation is working to shore up its commercial sustainability, it is not so sure of its public service remit.

This is the risk with the rush to podcast, or indeed allowing these blurred lines to exist in its audio output more generally. The BBC’s gift is in its ability to provide a service for all, one where every shred of its content is not determined by audience figures and reaction.

Take Desert Island Discs. It is able to straddle both worlds because the BBC has both appreciated its Sunday 11am slot is sacrosanct and that the programme needs to exist in a podcastable form of some shape.

Why was there such uproar to the decision to remove the classified football results from 5 Live earlier this season? It is not because every radio listener is an ardent, immovable traditionalist. It is because it represents a tendency to allow the balance to shift the wrong way.

Treading this tightrope will be a small but significant sign of how the BBC is handling a broader challenge

The wealth of well-received podcasting that the BBC has produced in recent years is testament to its continued creativity and excellence. But this can’t be at the cost of its radio content or public service commitments. Treading this tightrope will be a small but significant sign of how the BBC is handling a broader challenge.