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Why doesn’t the BBC offer full RSS feeds?

Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 6:15 am

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There’s much discussion about the merits of publishing full or partial RSS feeds on your website.

There are some good arguments both for and against doing this if you’re a blogger, but for media organisations it’s a bit different.

Newspapers and organisations that rely on paid-for advertising to support their businesses are likely to see RSS feeds as a tool for driving traffic to their website, so publishing partial RSS feeds makes sense.

The BBC doesn’t rely on advertisers’ cash to pay the bills, yet they only publish partial RSS news feeds. I have several of them on my reading list, but I’m constantly frustrated by the short excerpts in the feeds.

Often these snippets contain so little information that I have to click through to understand what the story’s actually about. A bit of a pain if I’m connected to the web, but if I’m on the move without a connection that’s just impossible.

So why doesn’t the BBC publish full feeds or even offer both types?

Doing this would allow audiences to get news and information in a way that suits them, rather than relying on the out-dated concept of driving traffic to a single place.

It’s straightforward to measure RSS traffic, so the BBC could still measure its audiences effectively across the different touchpoints

So the answer is I really don’t know why the BBC doesn’t offer full RSS feeds, so come on let’s have full RSS feeds please auntie.

I’ve contacted the BBC Press Office to see if they give me any more information on this.

ps in the meantime there is a way to get full content feeds, thanks to Duncan Barnes (via Ian).

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Comments on “Why doesn’t the BBC offer full RSS feeds?”
  • Duncan
    Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 3:57 pm

    Thanks Simon,

    Its an issue I’ve attempted to raise with the BBC before via email and the feedback form on their website but I have not any real response. This is why I built the script as I got tired of sending unanswered emails!

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Simon Wakeman

I've been on the web since 2001 and have been blogging about marketing and public relations since January 2006.

I'm currently Head of Marketing at Medway Council as well as a freelance marketing and PR consultant.

The content and opinions expressed on this website are not endorsed by nor reflect the views of any company or organisation I work with.

Simon was always ultra-professional with an excellent knowledge of his field, and worked to ensure that his projects were delivered on time and on standard. His enthusiasm and pleasant personality make him a pleasure to work with. Jules Kirk, Egg

Simon is an analytic and strategic thinker who is able to communicate his ideas and insights clearly. He was able to bring unique and important perspectives on customer touchpoints to the various teams we worked within…and was always able to motivate for successful new customer programs based on robust data. Rajhev Rajkumar

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