Some BBC iPlayer listeners had expected to hear the restful tones of a bedtime novel being read to them. Others had been looking forward to following the heart-warming and quirky adventures of a female detective agency in Botswana.
So imagine their surprise, and even anger, when they instead heard banging dance music that sounded like a rave in full swing.
The BBC has been forced to apologise after it put the wrong content up on its iPlayer meaning Radio 4 listeners, who have an average age of 55, were given content from Radio 1, aimed at young people, when they selected programmes.
Listeners branded the unexpected sounds from Radio 1 as “horrible” and complained it sounded like a dance party.
This came just a week after different technical problems with the iPlayer which resulted in it not working properly across an entire weekend.
Among the shows affected by the more recent incident were Book at Bedtime – The Miniaturist read by Emilia Fox, The News Quiz fronted by Sandi Toksvig and The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency.
When Radio 4 fans downloaded their favourite shows, on 25 July, they instead got Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills’s show and other dance music-related programming.
Audience members registered their dismay about the situation with Radio 4’s complaints show Feedback. This had followed earlier complaints about the iPlayer outage on the weekend of 19 July.
One listener said: “I’m not sure what’s going on with the iPlayer’s version of The News Quiz this evening but it sounds like they are in a rave.”
Another complained: “I tried to get Book At Bedtime. When it came up the sound recording was music, in inverted commas.
“I suppose if I were 50 years younger I would probably be able to give you great detail and probably love it. But quite frankly it was horrible.”
A Radio 4 listener added: “I tried to listen to the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency but instead I got the Scott Mills show from Radio 1.”
The Miniaturist – the Book At Bedtime that was affected – is set in the late 17th century and follows a young woman’s new life as the wife of a Dutch East India Company merchant trader and an “enigmatic artist” who makes complicated miniature creations.
The News Quiz is a weekly satirical comedy panel game, while The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency is based on the famous Alexander McCall Smith series of books about sleuthing in Botswana.
The BBC’s iPlayer team told the episode of Feedback which aired last Friday: “Due to an unforeseen technical issue on Friday (25 July) with one of our automatic recorder systems a number of catch-up radio programmes, or parts of programmes, were incorrectly recorded from Radio 1.
“As soon as we realised there was a problem we began removing these programmes and republishing them with the correct content. We apologise for the inconvenience.”
The statement added: “We regret that the last two weekends have been disappointing for audiences using our service. We do however believe this is not typical and in general over the last year our systems have been more resilient than ever. We are working hard to ensure these problems don’t happen again.”
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