BBC News promoting unavailable content

So I was reading a Robert Peston blog post on the BBC News website when I spotted what looked like an interesting article being promoted in the sidebar:

Link in sidebar of Robert Peston's blog

Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link only to be confronted with this:

This programme is not available to listen again

First off, it was a radio broadcast rather than a words-and-pictures article or feature. Like many people I'm much more selective about what I listen to than what I read, simply because I find that audio needs a greater investment of time and concentration. In fact, I wouldn't have clicked on the link had it been clear that it led to a radio broadcast. So I felt slightly misled.

But much worse than that was the message that "this programme is not available to listen again". Why bother promoting it elsewhere on the site, then?

In fact, all the Beeb managed to do was take me away from a blog post that I was fairly interested in reading - in order to give me information on a radio programme that I had already missed, could not catch up on, and probably wouldn't have invested the time in listening to even if I was able.

1 comment:

Laura Payne said...

I can't stand it when that happens.