The BBC could be better at listening

This has come out recently with the report on issues including the troublesome edit of a Donald Trump speech, bias in the Arabic service, and the bizarre use of preferred personal pronouns for rapists and murderers, routinely referring to biological males as ‘women’. The BBC’s defenders have called the edit an accident (it’s hard to imagine how it could happen – ‘Oops, I accidentally spliced together two clips 45 minutes apart’), play down the Arabic service issues and usually don’t even mention the denial of biological sex, instead claiming that the report is some kind of right wing attack, which misses the point that it’s true.

However, my own little dispute with the BBC has no political context. It’s more about the way that radio stations, particularly Radio 2, constantly provide misinformation about smart speakers amounting to advertising for Amazon. It has taken me five months to get a partial resolution, reflecting the way that unfortunately the BBC’s attitude to complaints (unless it’s someone moaning about their newsreader correcting ‘pregnant people’ to ‘women’) is to deny there’s a problem in the first place. Here’s my original complaint:

Constant advertising of Amazon smart speakers 

Every few minutes on Radio 2 we are encouraged to listen on smart speakers. I have smart speakers and would love to use the suggested commands. But I can’t.

However, there are three issues with this. Firstly, you do not provide a feed to Apple for their smart speakers and Radio 2 can’t be accessed directly on them. Secondly the commands you suggest we use along the lines of ‘Ask BBC Sounds to…’ are only relevant to Amazon’s Alexa-based smart speakers. Finally, some broadcasters, particularly Vernon Kay, actually give command suggestions specifically using ‘Alexa’ rather than ‘Smart speaker’.

This is nothing less than product placement and advertising for Amazon products. You surely should only be suggesting using smart speakers if Radio 2 is directly available on all major brands, and should not give commands that only work on the products of one supplier – Amazon. I can only assume you are being paid to advertise them, which I thought you were not allowed to do. Even if you aren’t being paid, this is still blatant advertising. 

The initial response was:

Alexa is one of the different smart speakers you can access BBC Sounds with. Others include Google Home, Apple Siri devices and Sonos devices. We are currently conducting a limited trial, using Alexa, when telling our listeners about Alexa-specific features only. We are striving to make instructions clearer for our Alexa audience, while avoiding confusion and frustration for listeners on other smart speaker brands, where the functionality is not possible. We will review data and feedback at the conclusion of the trial.

I replied:

Hello, 

Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, your response is incorrect. You cannot use an Apple device as a smart speaker because the BBC hasn’t licensed Apple to provide their service. Your ’supported devices’ webpage is highly misleading. All you can do with an Apple HomePod is use it via AirPlay as a Bluetooth speaker from BBC Sounds on a phone. The old Siri Shortcuts mechanism described on your website has not worked for several years – and even when it did work, it was just playing BBC radio from a phone on a Bluetooth speaker.

Your presenters’ current constant mentioning of Amazon’s smart speakers or misleadingly saying ‘ask your smart speaker to…’ is nothing less than advertising for one manufacturer’s product. I can access every other radio station via an Apple smart speaker simply by asking for it. I used to be able to do this with BBC radio when you were on TuneIn radio. Now you aren’t, you are not providing a service to non-Amazon speakers and that surely is unacceptable, but particularly so given your constant advertising of one US company’s products.

You have not in any way answered my complaint effectively.

The result at the end of ‘stage 1 of our complaints process’ was for the BBC to accept that their advice was wrong about being able to use Apple smart speakers, and to note that they had updated their advice to reflect this: it now says ‘BBC Sounds is not currently available via voice commands on Apple HomePod or Apple TV. However, if you have the BBC Sounds app on an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, you can use the AirPlay feature to stream BBC Sounds to your Apple HomePod or Apple TV. This feature is not supported from an Android device.’

Note that they have done nothing to address the focus on Amazon products, and haven’t made the simple change needed to make BBC radio available on Apple smart speakers – either making BBC Sounds directly accessible from the speaker, or BBC radio through Tune In Radio (as it used to be).

However, I have noticed a change in the way they mention smart speakers on the radio, even though it’s still often misleading. Sometimes they say ‘most smart speakers’ rather than ‘your smart speaker’, and more explicitly reference Alexa-based smart speakers for the extra features (without ever mentioning this means they are advertising Amazon products).

I decided not to take the complaint to the next level, even though it’s bizarre the BBC feels it’s okay to ignore smart speakers from one of the world’s biggest IT providers, and it still feels wrong that they are heavily advertising Amazon products. 

At least they eventually listened to a little bit of what I said – but they could have done a whole lot better.

Image is AI generated

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