The BBC has introduced 19 new podcasts today, adding music to its podcast offering for the first time. Titles include the Chart and Rock Shows from Radio 1, the Dancehall Top 10 on 1Xtra and Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone.
The problem with music on podcasts, as we know, is always sorting out the rights to play the music, which is why music radio has a particular problem; cut out the music and you're just left with the boring fillers with the DJ rambling on.
The BBC has got round that by including 30-second previews of tracks, which is better than nothing. These new podcasts are added to the 120 speech-only BBC podcasts, bringing the total to just under 140.
The Chart Show podcast is released today, and the others follow over the next week.
I'm still mourning the end of the original podcast trial last July, which meant the end of the excellent Newsnight video podcast. It was selected reports, rather than the whole show, but perfect for something meaningful and top quality on the journey to work rather than being forced to pick through the grotty Metro.
I pay my licence fee too, dammit, and I want Newsnight as a video podcast. I'm a disenfranchised licence fee-payer because there's no Mac version of the iPlayer, etc etc.
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