Can you please share which breathtaking podcasts you're listening to, because I've never found anything even close to as good as landmark BBC radio shows like Today, PM, Today in Parliament, In Our Time, The Moral Maze, Blood, Sex, and Money, From Our Own Correspondent, The Essay, and Night Tracks.
(rss feed: https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/b006qykl.rss)
Certainly there are other BBC programs that are better, and a small number that are very good, but at this point I honestly don't think they are enough to make up for how awful BBC News is and how much damage it's doing to UK society. In the past I would have made excuses for the regressive way the BBC is funded, but it's really hard to do that now.
* Dan Snow's History Hits
* Triggernometry
* Lex Fridman Podcast
* Atomic Hobo
* Jason Scott Talks his way out of it
* Darknet Diaries
* Omega Tau
* Rob Reid After On
* Anatomy of Next
* page 94 - Private Eye Podcast
* Command line heroes
* Full Fact
* Guido Talks
* Dan Carlin's Hardcore History
* The Bellingcat Podcast
* On The Metal
Some of these podcasts have won awards (See Bellingcat, Page94). My point being that given the shear number of high-quality content out there, I felt it wasn't worth paying £120 to the BBC every year.
Well I don't know what to say apart from that absolutely astounds me. They're the background noise of many British homes and you're severely missing out if these are your interests.
For example, In Our Time alone is 900 45-minute episodes each about an individual topic of science, history, maths, politics, art, culture, religion, etc, sometimes even computing, with genuine experts coming to discuss and debate it starting with a basic introduction anyone can follow and then going into the details.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_In_Our_Time_programmes
I think literally nobody else in the world produces this kind of super-high-quality and enduring intelligent spoken-word content. Even the NPR in the US is very poor in comparison.
And have you really never heard of the Today Programme or are you exaggerating for effect? It really sets the national daily political agenda in the UK like nothing else. I can't practically understand how you can follow politics and never had heard anyone say 'they said on the Today Programme...'
> I felt it wasn't worth paying £120 to the BBC every year
...but you don't have to, for radio.
They are almost exclusively BBC Radio 4 programs, many of which are available as podcasts. I can heartily recommend The Moral Maze and In Our Time.
_Today_ and _PM_ are amongst the most influential media in the UK. Not knowing about them is almost wilfully ignorant -- other media will report that "on the _Today_ programme this morning, Minister for Vaccines, Nadhim Zahawi, said…"
I don't understand what practical difference you think that makes... it's the same shows, made by the same people, how you listen to it doesn't make any difference.
With podcasts and streaming I often find the discussion starts and ends with "yes I listened to an interesting podcast about that...". Perhaps that will make someone else listen to it the next day, but the window of opportunity for discussion is gone.
