Why you’ll get the best of the BBC, first, on BBC Sounds

Mary Hough

Head of Growth and Discovery for BBC Sounds

Published: 12 September 2024

Podcast listening is at an all-time high with 12.3 million* people in the UK now listening to podcasts each week. This is a huge figure, and I'm delighted to see the appetite for on-demand listening continuing to grow.

BBC Sounds is now reaching around five million weekly users, with entertaining content across a range of genres including music, sport and news, driven forward by some of the best production teams and talent from across the UK.

We want people who love our programming to enjoy it first, directly from the BBC. With this in mind I want to be open and transparent about some changes coming to BBC Sounds, to make sure you know how to continue getting your favourite BBC podcasts and radio programmes as soon as they're available.

Later this month, we will start to make more on-demand BBC podcasts and radio programmes available to listen to first on BBC Sounds - usually for a week (seven days) or a month (28 days). After this window, they will then become available more widely on other third-party platforms. Some of our podcasts will continue to be released in one go as boxsets on BBC Sounds, with individual episodes dropping weekly on other podcast provider platforms.

This means that if you want priority access to all our brilliant podcasts and on-demand radio programmes, the best place to get them first is on BBC Sounds via the app, online or through your smart speaker.

Offering some select programmes first on BBC Sounds isn't new and has been a key part of our approach since the platform's inception. We genuinely believe BBC Sounds is the best place to listen to BBC content, where you benefit from top-quality programming across a range of live and on-demand titles, and a uniquely personalized experience with audio suggestions tailored specifically to you. We can reward our listeners with priority access to specially selected content on our platform, before it becomes available elsewhere, providing more value for BBC audiences while continuing to grow BBC Sounds.

This latest move follows an initial trial which began in 2022 and saw a small number of radio programmes made available for on-demand listening on BBC Sounds first before release onto RSS. The trial titles included Desert Island Discs, In Our Time, BBC Inside Science, The Infinite Monkey Cage, and Friday Night Comedy. Over the six-month trial period these titles brought 218,000 new and lapsed listeners to BBC Sounds and received 17 million plays on-platform. Listeners to these titles were also more likely to become regular listeners on BBC Sounds than on average. This growth on Sounds had a marginal impact on RSS where the majority of listeners continued to listen to the podcasts. As a result of the trial, Ofcom agreed that the BBC can continue to choose how to publish all our podcasts.

At the same time, as a public service organisation we greatly value off-platform listener consumption to help us find new audiences for BBC content and we will continue to encourage creative collaborative partnerships with those across the industry.

We've got some really exciting new and returning titles coming this autumn, from star-studded dramas to ground-breaking investigative journalism, and the best weekly conversational podcasts to make you laugh, think and keep you company, wherever you are.

We hope you discover your next favorite listen, first, on BBC Sounds.

Which programmes will be included?

Titles which were included in our successful trial, and which will continue to be available on BBC Sounds first, include Desert Island Discs, Moneybox, In Our Time, BBC Inside Science, The Infinite Monkey Cage, and Friday Night Comedy. These will continue to be available on BBC Sounds first, and Friday Night Comedy will now become available on third party platforms after a shorter seven-day window instead of the previous 28 days.

Additional titles which will now be available on BBC Sounds before anywhere else include The Life Scientific, This Cultural Life, Sliced Bread, Evil Genius with Russell Kane, Comedy of the Week, You're Dead to Me, and series two of The Coming Storm with Gabriel Gatehouse.

Not all content will have a Sounds-first window. Much of our content, including top-performing titles like The Archers, will continue to be available everywhere as soon as it is released. Additionally, programmes with a strong focus on timely news and current affairs, and news programmes which serve a strong public service purpose, such as Newscast, will remain accessible everywhere.

We will continue to review the distribution of individual titles on a case-by-case basis to help grow BBC Sounds and enable audiences to discover more brilliant content from us.

*Aged 15+ Data from RAJAR 2024

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