BBC Podcasts (UK)

[RobertinHerts]

I've been looking to see what BBC Podcasts are available for Alexa. I've only found two: The infinite monkey cage and Desert Island discs.

I'd be pleased to learn of any others:P

[strayfish]

I went to Tunein and searched for BBC podcasts just now and a bunch came up but not Monkey Cage or DID! When I tried before, it was quite a painful procedure (I was listening to a series called The Bright Sessions) because it was really difficult to access the podcast itself and if I did, getting the right episode seemed impossible so I gave up and listened on my PC. I'd say the best bet is to get the list onscreen on your phone or tablet then Bluetooth that through to your Alexa device. Doesn't solve the problem of what's available though.

[RobertinHerts]

Thanks for comment strayfish.

I've just edited my subject line to 'BBC Podcasts (UK)' which is what I intended.

Doing the search you mentioned only listed ancient or World service podcasts. And I don't mean 'ancient' in Internet time!

So my new question is why just two of the BBC Podcasts (UK) are present on Tunein, why not others?

Radioplayer lists some podcasts from commercial stations but I don't know if they're accessible by Alexa.

[strayfish]

I'm in the UK too; just now I searched TuneIn for BBC podcasts and got a list, one of which was headed 'Genres'. When I clicked that, I got a table of categories - science, humour, storytelling and so on - and from there, clicking 'science' brought up Monkey Cage, The Anthill, RIscience, amongst others (including some sci fi!) but only as single episodes. I couldn't find a way to access a podcast series and I'd be very surprised if I could get them played on Echo just because my previous experience showed how difficult that was. TuneIn needs tuning up, I think!

[strayfish]

So my new question is why just two of the BBC Podcasts (UK) are present on Tunein, why not others?

Because BBC Podcasts has not made a deal with Tunein to stream other content. Tunein isn't a free for all. Not every broadcaster will be available on Tunein.

Do you know this or are you surmising? I'm asking because I can find a lot of BBC podcasts on TuneIn, I just can't find any one series, just odd episodes or, when I do, any way of getting to the episode in the series that I want using Alexa. So far, I've had to find the required episode in a series on-screen (in the app) to play it. It feels very clumsy at the moment.