I don't know why BBC pushes it's sounds app so hard. I get nagged to use it every time I listen through Alexa too. There's no BBC sounds smart speaker so why do they care? What do they gain from me using the app?
> We also want to make our programmes and services as good as they can possibly be - this means us getting hold of meaningful audience data.
They claim it's because they're a public service and need to know what the public want, but there are other ways, and I'm torn on if it's a legit case or not. NPR has been trying to up use of NPR One for what I assume are similar reasons, but haven't gone the way of shutting out listening sources yet. Instead, they propose a standards [0] to do it from the listeners, and it's showing no signs of success.
0. https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-extra/2018/12/11/675250553/...
The purpose is to have a wide variety of material to listen to in my car (via Bluetooth) in which I do not have a data connection.
There was a play for a new podcasting standard by I think Gimlet (or one of them big companies in the space), that let you have user identifiers, inject ads based on whatever at different times, and send tracking messages at different times. I listened to an interview with the guy who makes Overcast and he basically said there's no reason any podcast app except theirs would want to support that, so I guess owning your own app for your own content is really the only way to get those analytics if you want them.
I can understand older items in the back catalogue needing to be removed, but for most shows now the standard contract should include "and presented on iPlayer in perpetuity". I don't know why they'd commission a new children's show, for example, and not include such a clause?