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BBC World Service offers free podcast documentaries
At first, the idea of "podcast documentaries" seemed a bit odd to me. It's a documentary to which you listen; there are no images.
BBC Documentaries offers quite a few documentaries in this format, for free. Once I started listening to one, I realized why it can actually be a viable medium. I listened to some of the documentary shown above, about Wedge Island, in which they refer to the inhabitants as "wedgies". Linguistic quirks aside, the format actually works.
It's not a boring lecture. It's just like a filmed documentary, but with no images. I mean, you listen to people talking, and there's a narrator, but it's all taken in the field, with the sounds of wind and cars in the background. It's not some stuffy studio with a professor who makes you want to go to sleep.
Another nice thing about this particular offering is that the BBC is giving them away for free, and not only within the UK. This is a part of the BBC World Service, which means I can use it just fine from Israel. I think that this is very nice of the BBC, and isn't something to be taken for granted in these geotarded times.
The documentaries don't seem to be very long; around 20-25 minutes is what I've seen, mostly. Certainly a manageable time span, especially if you're in the mood for some nice educational content.
Comments
3
Subscribe to commentsmojeMay 24th 2010 4:51PM
The Beeb do some great radio/podcast documentaries.
Highly recommend the one on the GCHQ listening station:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2010/04/100422_cracking_the_code.shtml
ab_nycMay 24th 2010 4:57PM
Isn't a podcast documentary just radio? I'm not sure what the distinction is... I love listening to podcasts - the audio ones - where a story is detailed out for 20 or so minutes. Is there a difference?
rokicMay 24th 2010 5:07PM
pbs.org has some great full length documentaries that are available in my country (Croatia) and most likely worldwide. but this also very interesting. and it's awesome if you can multitask listening to podcast and doing something else.