BBC pulls its podcasts from Google Podcasts and Assistant

The BBC has removed its podcasts from the Google Podcasts app and is also making them inaccessible to Google Assistant — and by extension, Google Home speakers. The broadcaster published a blog post taking issue with Google’s tendency to steer users who search for a podcast toward its own app “rather than BBC Sounds or other third-party services.” (The BBC Sounds app is unavailable outside the UK.)Kieran Clifton, the BBC’s director of distribution and business deve