Archers fans fume as new BBC app plays old episodes
FANS of The Archers are up in arms over the BBC Sounds app – because it keeps playing them episodes from years ago.
Listeners have complained that it is too hard to find the latest instalments of the Radio 4 drama and that even when they do, BBC Sounds automatically suggests they then listen to episodes that are nearly a decade old.
Yesterday, journalist Rachel Johnson told how she was left bemused after going from the most recent dispatch from Ambridge straight to a 2011 storyline while using the app, which was released amid much fanfare last November with a promotional budget of £10million.
Speaking on Radio 4’s World At One programme, Miss Johnson said: ‘I successfully navigated to The Archers... and it played the episode quite successfully – but then segued straight into an episode from 2011 when Jolene and Kenton hadn’t even got together.’
She added: ‘I thought I’d had, really, some sort of mental episode and I had slipped through a rent in the continuum. I had to leap out of the bath and grab the iPhone.’
Miss Johnson, 53, also said it was ‘not the first time’ she’d had ‘real problems’ with navigating the app. She complained about the sort of content suggestions it makes as well, claiming that it keeps pushing her towards BBC Radio 1Xtra, which is aimed at 15 to 24year- olds – instead of stations such as Radio 4, which are better suited to her.
Her concerns were shared by other listeners, who complained both online and on air that the app is not fit for purpose. They urged the BBC to keep the BBC iPlayer Radio app running so they could continue to listening to programmes there – instead of going ahead with plans to close it.
The broadcaster has said it will scrap the Radio app by the end of the year, effectively forcing people to use BBC Sounds instead.
But Miss Johnson said yesterday: ‘That is not news I want to hear. I beg the BBC: do not get rid of the iPlayer Radio app until this has settled down, and even people like me understand how to work it.’
It is not just fans of The Archers who are furious with the quality of the app. Mark Mardell, presenter of Radio 4’s The World This Weekend, said on Twitter that he had to spend 15 minutes searching for Misha Glenny’s new series, The Invention of Britain, on BBC Sounds – even though he had already used the app to start listening to it. He called it a ‘major miss for Radio 4’.
The Corporation launched BBC Sounds last year in order to pull in younger audiences, who are tuning out of traditional radio stations in favour of podcasts and on-demand services.
But the app is only rated two out of a possible five stars on Apple’s app store, with users complaining that it is ‘difficult to navigate’, ‘clunky’ and does not offer them basic features such as the ability to make a playlist.