BBC iPlayer website

[mtbc]

Rather than make television program information available through some useful open API for which one can use the client software of one's choice the BBC prefer us to access their streaming radio and television through their fairly dreadful website. It's pretty and functional, it just doesn't let me easily find out things that they know and I want to know. When I must use it at all then I try to navigate it via a third-party search engine.

Taking the example of one of my favorite Scandi noir series The Bridge (2011), in navigating the BBC's website I may find myself at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b03bnc34 which does not neatly organize episodes into series nor tell me how many are in the current series and when the next episode comes. From that page is there something that I can click to reach the more useful https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bnc34/episodes? Possibly, but I have yet to find it. A previous version of the site would also tell me when a show was first broadcast.

Comments

[emperor]

Sorry, I'd have DW'd the start of season 4 if I'd known someone else was waiting for it to be on in the UK!

What I do is search for "the bridge", click on an episode (e.g. the first of S4 is https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b09m8hmh/the-bridge-series-4-episode-1 ); that page tells me when the episode was first broadcast (11 May) and has a link to the "programme website" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bnc34 . That then has the episodes tab https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bnc34/episodes/player which then has the forthcoming broadcasts https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bnc34/broadcasts/upcoming

[mtbc]

Thank you very much! And to complete the circle, I can click on one of those episodes from the tab and get back to the initial view to see a "First shown". I'll try to remember these routes, they certainly help to make the site more usable. The key seems to be to always go via specific episodes.