Did you know you can subscribe to some BBC Sounds podcasts in your favourite podcast app?

BBC Sounds has long been a great source of audio entertainment so when they originally started publishing podcasts, I setup a little service on Twitter called ComediPlayer to syndicate the original RSS feeds for people to follow.

Unfortunately, BBC have since shifted away from sharing the data publicly (the original RSS feed is now empty), understandably preferring to encourage listeners on to their own BBC Sounds app.

With Twitter knocking at deaths door, now limiting RSS syndication through third party apps for a paid premium, ComediPlayer has also ceased running on Twitter (although I setup a Mastodon / Fediverse equivalent at @[email protected])

However, it is possible to follow your favourite shows in your own preferred podcast app with a little URL hacking.

  1. Visit the BBC Sounds Podcast directory, for example https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/podcasts/comedy for their Comedy shows
  2. Find the episode you want to follow and get the “More episodes” URL, for example, “Friday Night Comedy” is https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p02pc9pj
  3. Get the unique show identifier at the end of the URL (e.g.p02pc9pj for Friday Night Comedy above)
  4. Append it to the following podcast file URL (not forgetting the .rss suffix) https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p02pc9pj.rss
  5. Pop that podcast RSS feed URL into your favourite podcast app

There you have it. You can now listen to your favourite BBC Sounds podcasts directly in your chosen podcast app. This won’t work for ALL BBC Sounds content, just those available as podcasts. It’s nice to know you’re not limited to the BBC Sounds app though.