Facebook Podcast Is Here, Join BBC And Others Live On Air

Podcasts have been around for some time and they have been incredibly popular among those who like to listen to various figures talking about various things either live or in recorded form. Facebook seems to have noticed this since it just launched its own podcast platform called Live Audio. Among the brands coming over to play include BBC World Service and Harper Collins.

Live Audio serves to complement another feature that Facebook launched months ago called Facebook Live, where instead of simply audio, content creators could get in touch with viewers via video. It’s also a great way for content creators in low bandwidth areas to still broadcast, thus filling a niche that the live video streaming service neglected, TechCrunch reports.

In any case, many publishers are already signing up to be among the first to take advantage of the newly implemented service. Apart from BBC World Service, which is a news radio brand in the UK and the book publisher Harper Collins, Adam Grant and Britt Bennet will also be joining in.

“We know that sometimes publishers want to tell a story on Facebook with words and not video,” Facebook’s announcement post reads. “We’ve even seen some Pages find creative ways to go live and reach audiences with audio only by using the Facebook Live API or by adding a still image to accompany their audio broadcast. Our new Live Audio option makes it easy to go live with audio only when that’s the broadcaster’s preferred format.”

With regards to the listeners, closing the Facebook app won’t automatically turn off Live Audio for Android users. The radio broadcast can keep on going even as they open other apps, with the exception of those that run video feeds. The same can’t be said for iOS users, however, since the broadcast will only remain live as long as the Facebook app is open for Apple devices.