BBC Music app offers best of BBC radio and TV music shows

The BBC is doing its best to bring its wealth of TV and radio content to your mobile, with the free BBC Music app, set for release today on smartphones and tablets.

The app aims to bring together the best of the BBC's music shows, while also delivering playlists and allowing you to track down any song played on BBC radio - and listen to it on Spotify.

There's no mention of offline listening, so exporting to Spotify or Deezer will be your best way to get newly-discovered tracks from the radio downloaded to your phone.

We had a first glimpse of the new app back in November 2015, when Bob Shennan, director of BBC Music, revealed the app would launch next year,

Shennan claimed then that it wouldn't be an all-you-can-stream service to take on the likes of Spotify, and it seems the new app works alongside the more fully-functioned services.

Speaking at BBC Music’s On the Beat conference, Shennan said Apple’s Beats 1 radio service was closer to what the BBC would aim to replicate with its own app.

"Beats has a point,” he said. “People want curation, and we’re in the position to offer that.

“We can’t offer millions of tracks like Spotify does, but we do have a huge catalogue of unique content, and we have the expertise. We can’t be the biggest music service, but we can be the most trusted.”

The BBC Music app is set to be available for phones and tablets on iOS and Android from today.

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Joe Cox
Content Director

Joe is the Content Director for What Hi-Fi? and Future’s Product Testing, having previously been the Global Editor-in-Chief of What Hi-Fi?. He has worked on What Hi-Fi? across the print magazine and website for almost 20 years, writing news, reviews and features on everything from turntables to TVs, headphones to hi-fi separates. He has covered product launch events across the world, from Apple to Technics, Sony and Samsung; reported from CES, the Bristol Show, and Munich High End for many years; and written for sites such as the BBC, Stuff and The Guardian. In his spare time, he enjoys expanding his vinyl collection and cycling (not at the same time).