Richard Banks's dashboard

I've been in touch with Radio 4 and they are aware of this and have a plan in motion to fix it this coming weekend. Apparently it's a bug affected some other Woman's Hour Realmedia links as well. Thanks again for pointing it out.

Thanks for this. I have passed your query on to a web producer in the Radio 4 team so it should get fixed soon.

As of last last week, there is now quite a simple way of doing this.

If you were to install Boxee on your Mac / Apple TV and connect it up to your telly, you could access BBC iPlayer from within Boxee and control playback with your Mac remote. Works a treat.

But I should add that Boxee have built in support for BBC iPlayer off their own backs without any official involvement from the BBC (as far as I know), so the BBC can't offer support.

Indeed, that's correct.

If you're in the UK, you should be able to listen again to radio shows from the national BBC radio networks in Flash.

The "Dial-up Modem version" switch allows you to choose to listen in Real Media, rather than Flash. It's for people on slower dial-up connections for whom the higher quality Flash streams (128k stereo, or 192k for Radio 3) wouldn't work.

Suggest you read James Cridland's posts on the Radio Labs blog for more details about future streaming plans:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radiolabs/...

Hello again

There isn't a podcast for Radio 1's Essential Mix, I'm afraid. Sorry, I should have said that we can't make all programmes available to download, especially those featuring music, drama or readings, due to rights agreements. Where we have made podcasts available of music-based radio shows, we're only permitted to include short clips of music and can only allow the files to be downloaded in the UK.

If you have questions about the licence fee, try this site:
http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/informat...

Thanks
Richard

Hello Joffrey

Firstly, I should point out that this isn't an official BBC feedback mechanism: we use getsatisfaction.com for suggestions and bug reports for some BBC.co.uk websites.

You're welcome to use http://www.bbc.co.uk/feedback/ for your comments.

I can, however, tackle a few of the points you raise. For starters, BBC iPlayer streaming works on Windows, Mac and Linux. It has done for nearly 12 months. Assuming you're referring to the downloader, you may have seen recent announcements in the press and on bbc.co.uk about the imminent arrival of an Adobe AIR-based download solution which will work on Mac and Linux systems.

Regarding the BBC's use of RealPlayer, you should find on bbc.co.uk that the amount of Real Media audio/video content is decreasingly rapidly as most BBC sites start to use Flash instead. Indeed, you can listen live and listen again to national radio programming in BBC iPlayer without needing to install RealPlayer.

As for podcasts - that's my area - I'm pleased to confirm that all podcasts from the BBC (approaching 200 series) are freely available in the standard MP3 format.

You say that you're seeing 30 second adverts before BBC News clips. If you're in the UK, that doesn't sound right. If could be that our servers think you're outisde the UK. If you're still seeing this, have a read of this help page: http://faq.external.bbc.co.uk/questio...

Finally, you asked if it's possible not to pay the BBC licence fee. The answer is of course yes - if you do not watch or record any live TV programming *as it is being broadcast* by the BBC, then you do not need to pay for a licence.

Best wishes
Richard