"Most BBC radio stations to become unavailable for international users"

[Forget It (U2079353)]

This move kind of explains the transfer of drama and speech off Radio 3 and onto Radio 4
- see the other thread.
Drama and speech has much less music rights cost and so can remain accessible overseas.
By the way will Ireland count as international or as "UK" in this context?

[Ein Heldenleben]

This move kind of explains the transfer of drama and speech off Radio 3 and onto Radio 4
- see the other thread.
Drama and speech has much less music rights cost and so can remain accessible overseas.
By the way will Ireland count as international or as "UK" in this context?

That’s a very good question- I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count as UK for rights reasons but would come under the EU TV Region . In practice it’s impossible to prevent people in the Republic picking up BBC services and there are very good historical reasons for allowing them to do so. At one point I think BBC TV was rebroadcast “unofficially” through land based retransmission . Now it’s recognised that it’s not practical to prevent digital reception . But I’m pretty sure the iPlayer is not available in the Republic. I’m told there are quite a few RTÉ viewers in the North but I’ve never seen any figures.

[Retune]

Terrible decision on top of the existing cuts to the World Service (not to mention the brutal slashing of our overseas aid budget - Brexit Britain, it seems, continues to withdraw into its own shell). On a purely selfish note, I suppose this means having the poorly designed BBC Sounds app shoved further down my throat. I don't want to 'explore deeper context and analysis on select topics, gaining a richer understanding of the issues that matter most—all without leaving the platform', I just want to go straight to the live stream without all that nonsense. Even as it is, I seem to have to find a new streaming URL every other week to continue listening to R3 on my preferred radio app, but soon that may not be an option. Perhaps they'll kill off the remaining RSS feeds for BBC podcasts too, and everything will be forced through Sounds.

[Hadrian_Bolt]

Oh, how we wish this was the only awful decision made by the BBC in recent years. From rigged Blue Peter votes and competitions to the Jimmy Saville embarrassment. Sometimes it seems like they have a death-wish.

But back to the current topic. I was enjoying listening to BBC stations (in the UK) on "Yamaha" kit which received internet streams. That is until mid-2023 when the BBC decided to discontinue their "shoutcast" streams. Presumably to stop overseas listeners from enjoying them (World Service does remain on shoutcast). Result for me was that I had to buy and fit some aerials, and buy a tuner for the dining room where there was no existing FM or DAB option.
What a great way of alienating the licence-payer !

I still don't regret having the Yamaha kit (with streaming capability) in three rooms. Especially because of France Musique which offers an ever-growing number of great music streams to which I find myself listening more and more. No commercials, I assume the French taxpayer pays for it. I'm grateful.

I do understand the "broadcast rights" issues, satellite broadcasting tries to enforce this by having satellite aerials which "target" only the territories for which the transmission is intended. But with a big enough dish that could always be circumvented. And now with the internet, "dodgy" workarounds for territorial limits abound. The net result of the BBC's decision is that the rest of the world will listen to BBC stations (if they still want to) using "pirate" streams.

[Roger Webb]

But back to the current topic. I was enjoying listening to BBC stations (in the UK) on "Yamaha" kit which received internet streams. That is until mid-2023 when the BBC decided to discontinue their "shoutcast" streams. Presumably to stop overseas listeners from enjoying them (World Service does remain on shoutcast). Result for me was that I had to buy and fit some aerials, and buy a tuner for the dining room where there was no existing FM or DAB option.
What a great way of alienating the licence-payer !

I still don't regret having the Yamaha kit (with streaming capability) in three rooms. Especially because of France Musique which offers an ever-growing number of great music streams to which I find myself listening more and more. No commercials, I assume the French taxpayer pays for it. I'm grateful.

.

Welcome to the forum.

I agree with you about Radio 3 disappearing from the aggregators of internet radio....I assume as a Yamaha owner you use the MusicCast app. which was using airable - I had thought that airable had done a deal and you could still get the BBC stations on it.

There is a thread called 'Classical music stations ONLINE' that may be of interest...a lot of us now listen to stations such as the Helsinki based YLE. I use WDR3, NPO4, BR Klassik, SWR2 and RBB3, mainly for evening concerts. An easy way is to use the Vradio app. I find, but you need to get it from your device to the streamer as it's not native to any of the control apps.

[Hadrian_Bolt]

Yes, "MusicCast" is the Yamaha terminology I neglected to mention.

I have R-N803 (plus CD-N301) in the living room, WXA-50 in the kitchen/dining room, and a pair of WX-021 in main bedroom. Also a pair of WX-010 plus a WXAD-10 still boxed from our house move in 2020 !

The switch to "Airable" happened in March 2019 as far as I can tell, so predates all this. The subsequent "Airable" (if that is where it was applied) fix to get BBC stations back was not device-independent, it required a firmware update at the receiving end to apply it. Eventually my WX-021s got that fix, so I'm grateful I can once again listen to BBC stations in the bedroom. All of my other Yamaha kit is on a list of items that will NEVER receive that update. They say it's a technical issue, but of course the WX-021 happens to be the one that was still on sale when the BBC pulled the plug on shoutcast ;-) Best I can say about Yamaha is that aftermarket support for their motorcycles is even worse. I have no information about support for their pianos and guitars !

Thanks for the tips on international streams, not had chance to try them yet.

[Hadrian_Bolt]

This is what the BBC say about ending "shoutcast" streaming in 2023:

"Ending support for Shoutcast will enable us to focus on the two most popular technologies currently used – HLS and DASH. This will allow us to understand more about how and where our content is consumed and will help us improve the services we offer to our listeners."

So it's not about cost (I believe that as the old technology was already paid for), or even limiting listening overseas (I don't believe that), but about gathering listening statistics.

Forgive me, but doesn't one of the "B's" in BBC stand for "Broadcasting" ? The definition of that word must have changed in the BBC dictionary.

[Roger Webb]

Yes, "MusicCast" is the Yamaha terminology I neglected to mention.

I have R-N803 (plus CD-N301) in the living room, WXA-50 in the kitchen/dining room, and a pair of WX-021 in main bedroom. Also a pair of WX-010 plus a WXAD-10 still boxed from our house move in 2020 !

The switch to "Airable" happened in March 2019 as far as I can tell, so predates all this. The subsequent "Airable" (if that is where it was applied) fix to get BBC stations back was not device-independent, it required a firmware update at the receiving end to apply it. Eventually my WX-021s got that fix, so I'm grateful I can once again listen to BBC stations in the bedroom. All of my other Yamaha kit is on a list of items that will NEVER receive that update. They say it's a technical issue, but of course the WX-021 happens to be the one that was still on sale when the BBC pulled the plug on shoutcast ;-) Best I can say about Yamaha is that aftermarket support for their motorcycles is even worse. I have no information about support for their pianos and guitars !

Thanks for the tips on international streams, not had chance to try them yet.

Sorry to hear about that, my situation is about as bad, which is why I've gone over to using a tablet for radio generally. I use all Quad stuff and their control app. (Playfi) is in the process of going over to TuneIn app. for internet radio. This is totally useless in the UK for both BBC and foreign stations.....but the manufacturers are still selling units with the promise of internet radio.

I think you are totally right about BBC ditching Shoutcast...they want us all to use Sounds app. to give the 'bean counters' something to do!

[french frank]

Forgive me, but doesn't one of the "B's" in BBC stand for "Broadcasting" ? The definition of that word must have changed in the BBC dictionary.

The BBC dictionary diverges from other dictionaries of English on several entries (e.g. 'live music').

[Guest]

[groundedgrid]

There seems to be a misunderstanding on this thread about the removal of these stations. It’s all to do with rights costs . When the BBC buys rights to music and indeed most copyrighted content it generally buys rights for UK transmission only. That’s because foreign rights ,especially US ones , are very expensive. A Tv programme could pay thousands of pounds to licence some US commercial tracks if they wanted global clearance. That’s why you don’t hear much Elvis Presley in BBC dramas.
Although radio “needle time” costs are much less they still add up.
To those who listen to or watch the BBC abroad and don’t pay the licence fee I would invite them to make a contribution to the BBC’s costs. To those who complain about constant cuts I’d just point out the 30 per cent cut the BBC has had in real terms to the licence fee since 2000 plus additional costs of services like S4C and The World Service. The German TV licence fee is considerably more expensive - but it’s much less of an issue in that country.

I'm sure there are many, many of us out here in the rest of the world who would happily pay a sub to be able to continue to listen to a global treasure like Radio 3. If there was a mechanism to do it.
I see that Radio 4 and World Service are moving to BBC.COM, which is supposedly run by the commercial arm of the BBC. Why would they not make that a commercial-free, subscription platform for us to listen to all the stations we are going to lose? Then we COULD contribute to the BBC. Currently there is no mechanism for that, outside the UK.

It is a deeply sad time to lose access to Radio 3. Particularly ironic as the US is destroying it's overseas broadcasting services.

[groundedgrid]

The BBC, to its credit broadcasts at a higher dynamic range - especially on live concerts - an effect of this on high quality streams is to make the average level seem lower. Many European stations limit the dynamic range to all delivery methods, DAB, FM and internet streams....just listen to France Music live concerts! One minute, during a quiet bit, you can hear every shuffle and cough in the audience, next the orchestra comes in tutti and it disappears to the back of the stage. FM in this country used to be like this ( maybe it still is), but the stream online is not compressed at source...although the AAC codec is a form of compression, it is much more subtle than simply turning the wick up on quiet bits and down on the loud ones!

That's interesting to know. Come to think of it I have read somewhere that there was no processing done on Radio 3 at all?

[Roger Webb]

That's interesting to know. Come to think of it I have read somewhere that there was no processing done on Radio 3 at all?

Well it's not possible for any radio network to transmit the complete dynamic range of, say, an orchestra which can be 90db, the quietest sounds would be lost in the noise floor and the loudest could not be accommodated by the limit of the distribution system.

In the 'good old days' of FM it was thought - still is by some - that the problem was that the distribution system (GPO lines, then PCM) was the limiting factor, and to some extent that's true, but only because it wasn't thought necessary to provide anything better as the dynamic range that the FM system was capable of was only about 40 db.....that people think that FM is superior to digital never ceases to amaze me!..especially as the distribution network is digital...the dynamic range for this service is curtailed at source, and if necessary at other points along the distribution chain.

DAB is a bit better, but the system adopted by the BBC (Radio Authority) ie MP2 at varying bitrates (max 192kbts) is simply not enough and the system is considered too lossy to be classed as 'HiFi', although I can enjoy concerts on my old DAB tuner when the internet is down!

The HLS/Dash AAC at 320 that the BBC puts out allows a pretty good dynamic range, but will not accommodate 90db and some compression is inevitable - but is much more subtle than the old 'Optimod' devices used in the past, but I believe the BBC sometimes uses the 'wrong' feed for internet radio, resulting in obvious dynamic range manipulation.

There are stations that broadcast using FLAC files ( the BBC experimented with these for a Prom season a few years ago, but not since) and an example are the two Cesky Rozhlas stations, classical and jazz, available via VRadio app in FLAC 944k....but a warning, these are massive files and require good wifi - I use a tablet plumbed into ethernet and fed to the DAC in my preamp, with excellent results.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I'm sure there are many, many of us out here in the rest of the world who would happily pay a sub to be able to continue to listen to a global treasure like Radio 3. If there was a mechanism to do it.
I see that Radio 4 and World Service are moving to BBC.COM, which is supposedly run by the commercial arm of the BBC. Why would they not make that a commercial-free, subscription platform for us to listen to all the stations we are going to lose? Then we COULD contribute to the BBC. Currently there is no mechanism for that, outside the UK.

It is a deeply sad time to lose access to Radio 3. Particularly ironic as the US is destroying it's overseas broadcasting services.

They’ve probably done the calculations and worked out that the subscriptions wouldn’t cover the cost of the global music streaming rights which even time limited to 30 days would be very large. There is no mechanism other than the licence fee or some sort of tax for paying for BBC services that meets the universality criterion. One of the consequences of the tech revolution is that vast amounts of money are now spent on analogue , digital terrestrial , satellite, and internet distribution. All money that’s been taken from programme making. Uk TV broadcasting is in crisis and I very much fear R3 and R4 will suffer considerable collateral damage in the looming crash.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Well it's not possible for any radio network to transmit the complete dynamic range of, say, an orchestra which can be 90db, the quietest sounds would be lost in the noise floor and the loudest could not be accommodated by the limit of the distribution system.

In the 'good old days' of FM it was thought - still is by some - that the problem was that the distribution system (GPO lines, then PCM) was the limiting factor, and to some extent that's true, but only because it wasn't thought necessary to provide anything better as the dynamic range that the FM system was capable of was only about 40 db.....that people think that FM is superior to digital never ceases to amaze me!..especially as the distribution network is digital...the dynamic range for this service is curtailed at source, and if necessary at other points along the distribution chain.

DAB is a bit better, but the system adopted by the BBC (Radio Authority) ie MP2 at varying bitrates (max 192kbts) is simply not enough and the system is considered too lossy to be classed as 'HiFi', although I can enjoy concerts on my old DAB tuner when the internet is down!

The HLS/Dash AAC at 320 that the BBC puts out allows a pretty good dynamic range, but will not accommodate 90db and some compression is inevitable - but is much more subtle than the old 'Optimod' devices used in the past, but I believe the BBC sometimes uses the 'wrong' feed for internet radio, resulting in obvious dynamic range manipulation.

There are stations that broadcast using FLAC files ( the BBC experimented with these for a Prom season a few years ago, but not since) and an example are the two Cesky Rozhlas stations, classical and jazz, available via VRadio app in FLAC 944k....but a warning, these are massive files and require good wifi - I use a tablet plumbed into ethernet and fed to the DAC in my preamp, with excellent results.

The internal PCM a distribution system used by the BBC is way better than most of the codecs used in digital transmission (or so they tell me - I couldn’t hear the difference .

I read somewhere that effective bit “sampling “ rate of FM is estimated to be the equivalent of 3,000 kbps . That’s why if you listen to Choral Evensong it sounds so much more present and warm on FM than on Sounds. There’s all sorts of jiggery pokery even on the better streamers like Qobuz which means that (unless you download) even the hi end stuff is never as good as they claim.

However as you say re FM it’s only 40db range and is not noiseless.
As for compression that’s a volume on its own. All recordings are artefacts and there is range control built into the system - just by moving faders up and down - it’s not the same as automatic compression but it’s still range control. I still think some of the best sound to be heard anywhere is on a live Royal Albert Hall / Royal Opera House relay - mainly because there’s been so little processing between mic and loudspeaker . Yes you can hear the compression slam in but it doesn’t sound so processed almost unnaturally brilliant like many modern studios recordings . I reckon all sorts of sweetening goes on.