Spanish broadcaster RNE breaks open RSS apps

Spanish public broadcaster RTVE is blocking podcasts of its national radio station, RNE, from some third party podcast apps.

But unusually, the company still publishes open RSS feeds for all its shows - so shows appear in every podcast app that uses them. The broadcaster has chosen to deliberately block specific podcast apps from downloading the audio.

One such podcast app that RNE is blocking is AntennaPod, a free podcast app on Android. It’s one of the most popular apps on Android - and in Spain, 78.8% of Spanish mobile phone users use Android mobile phones.

Users have discovered that RNE is specifically blocking AntennaPod, based on the app’s user-agent, which is correctly set for every download. It’s unclear why: the app contains no advertising, and is open-source. It’s free to download, and acts in accordance with the unwritten contract between podcast publishers and apps.

“We will review the case of AntennaPod,” said J. Javier Hernández Bravo from RTVE, in an email to Podnews, after we asked for comment. He told us: “RNE Audio continues to publish open RSS feeds, and at the same time, it has decided to block some third-party podcast applications from downloading audio. Many of those platforms were making money from our content.”

There are no podcast platforms that Podnews is aware of which charge for access to open RSS feeds. (We’re always grateful to hear of any). Some podcast apps contain display advertising, but this is not the case for AntennaPod.

Blocking the wrong way

RNE continues to publish open RSS feeds, so the broadcaster’s shows appear in podcast apps - but the audio isn’t available. This means that RNE shows appear without any issue - but don’t play in some of them, causing audiences to think that the app, rather than the publisher, is at fault. As one example - a long thread in AntennaPod’s support forum, which is manned by volunteers, trying to debug the issue.

Apple Podcasts, from where the majority of apps get their podcast directory, distributes open RSS feed addresses to third-party podcast apps. Apple offers publishers the option to opt out of this distribution: but RNE has not used this feature, preferring to offer Spanish listeners a broken experience on other players.

RNE says: “We maintain agreements with major audio and video platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. We believe that the affected users are a minority.”

RNE had just told us that some companies were “making money” of RNE’s content - but then gives three examples of those that do. Spotify makes money off podcast content by aggressively marketing premium upgrades to its music app, and in some cases playing audio advertising before and after episode audio. YouTube puts advertising in front of podcast content, and markets a premium version. And even Apple Podcasts makes money off podcast content by exclusively being available as an app on iPhones and Macs, which only Apple sells.

AntennaPod does none of these things: so why is it blocked?

And not blocking at all

RNE tells Podnews: “To listen to our content, it’s not necessary to download the RNE Audio app; it’s possible to do so directly from the URL https://www.rtve.es/play/radio/. You can also find content by directly typing its name into your browser’s search bar.”

Indeed, you can listen through web players, since the user-agent given by a website is the user-agent of the browser, not the app. So, RNE loses complete control of its content on the web, where advertising is easy to add to pages, but is able to block podcast apps because they responsibly give information about which app is downloading them.

RNE is a public service broadcaster. The owner of RNE, RTVE, is paid by money from Spanish taxpayers via the Spanish government, and a tax on pay-television operators in the country. Yet, this means that the very people who pay for RTVE’s content aren’t able to listen in the podcast player of their choice.

RNE told us: “We believe that our commitment to public service is strengthened by fulfilling the responsibility of knowing where our content is and what is being done with it” - which doesn’t explain why they’re publishing open RSS feeds, available anywhere, and only specifically block-listing some podcast apps like AntennaPod.

And, of course, download stats are available directly on RNE’s servers, wherever a podcast is available.

It’s not because of rights either

Finally, RNE tells us, opaquely, that “there are broadcast and distribution rights limitations”. The open RSS feed is the method of distribution, which they haven’t restricted.

RNE’s audio files - whether you listen through Apple or through AntennaPod - are the same, and are downloaded directly from RNE’s servers. They retain full ownership. We don’t understand the argument.

Why are public service broadcasters so against the public listening?

With the tremendous success of podcasting across the world - 773 million hours of podcasts consumed every week just in the US - it’s clear that podcasting is having a moment.

So far, though, public broadcasters appear to be fighting against podcasting. We’ve seen the BBC blocking apps on spurious grounds; Radio-Canada sending misleading legal demands to podcasters, and Danish Radio removing shows from open RSS in favour of its own app.

The results are clear - users aren’t installing these apps, preferring to use the apps they already have on their phone. Users of public service apps are barely growing, and getting older. At a time when public service broadcasting is under renewed pressure for funding, broadcasters are making an unforced choice in favour of irrelevance.

RNE’s choice to knowingly publish open RSS feeds that don’t work on some apps - without any consultation with those app developers - is one of the more egregious examples.

In 2023, the broadcaster received €1.07bn (US $1.24bn) according to an annual report published by the company. That funding is made under Law 17/2006, which requires RTVE to “achieve universal coverage”. Blocking freely available podcast apps would appear to be against this requirement. If RTVE doesn’t want to be a public broadcaster, it’s welcome to hand that money back.