There’ve been one or two pieces recently bemoaning the sad departure of several treasures from Radio 4 and Five Live including in particular A World In Your Ear.
Essentially, it’s too expensive and labour intensive to put together. I must admit that it’s one of those programmes that I know I enjoy, but never find enough time to listen to. Which is my fault, I know, but if I only I could download them…
The BBC Trust has recently authorised the go ahead of on-demand services. In the press this was widely reported as the iPlayer and the Beeb’s TV catch-up service. But non-DRM audio downloads also form a part of this, and with only book readings and classical music being excluded, I’d hope that the majority of radio documentaries such as A World In Your Ear will now be included amongst the BBC’s podcasts – certainly those without music issues anyway. A science programme or two would be nice to begin with. And I’m sure that Jeff Randall’s Weekend Business would be enormously popular.
As an aside, the two exclusions specifically mentioned in the Public Value Trust final conclusions document were classical music, for which the record industry has successfully argued against because it might damage their business (I vehemently disagree with this), and audiobooks, since this is a burgeoning area (I’d have thought that there was little danger here, since the copyright of the books will almost certainly remain with the publisher or author, who’ll be free to insist that DRM-free downloads should not be made available since they’re selling their own CDs or using a service like Audible).
However, comedy programmes and plays are not excluded, and I really hope that we’ll start to see downloads of some these made available. Again, the copyright might well remain with the authors of the plays, and agreements might need reaching. But given the vast amount of drama produced that has no further anciliary use on either CD-releases or BBC7 repeats, I’m sure a great deal could be released. There’d certainly be music issues with some plays, but for others where specially composed music is used, those could again be overcome. Most writers would be happy that their work reaches a wider audience surely? And since nearly all radio drama is broadcast during the day, the potential for reaching a significantly increased listenership is enormous.