BBC abandons users of older Android devices?

The BBC iPlayer app for Android used to cover both TV and Radio. In May 2014, that changed: radio content was now to be found on their new iPlayer Radio app. But this app is only available for newer Android devices - the justification being that because "over 80%" of usage was on newer devices, it was OK to downgrade the service to the remainder. This is a troubling principle - which if applied to TV and radio stations or programmes would see a decimation of minority-interest content. It's particularly pernicious because it hits older and harder-up people who will tend to change their devices less often.

Those who don't have the money or inclination to throw away their older Android devices, were not to be totally abandoned - they would be able to access Listen Again content via the BBC website with their browser accessing the BBC Media Player component.

But this is proving unusable. After a few days, my Android 2.3.6 device would cut out every radio programme after something like 10 seconds (whether I started at the beginning or part-way through). I reset the device to its Factory Settings and reinstalled everything, and found that the Android native browser and Firefox wouldn't play at all, and Opera Mini would sometimes work fine, but at other times pressing the play button on the selected programme episode would bring a blank screen.

What help has the BBC been? Absolutely useless. I tried to complain about the policy on abandoning owners of older devices, only to discover that there is no way to complain about iPlayer. You can comment and enquire, but not complain. I tried complaining about this inability to complain, to the BBC Trust, but they don't handle individual complaints either. They say they are passing my complaint on to Audience Services - I have no great hopes of progress, but will keep a flicker of hope alive for a few weeks.

I also tried asking for help from the BBC iPlayer team. Enquiries receive an acknowledgement in anything from a few hours to a week or so, which offers the hope (but not a promise) of a response within a further fortnight. Their first response was to blame a temporary outage that in no way explained the experience that I had described. How does one respond to such a brush-off? You can't reply: you have to make a new enquiry, and wait another fortnight or so. Second time, they responded to my apparent problem of programmes stopping "nine or ten minutes" in - but I had written "nine or ten seconds" - very different. So I enquired again - and have now been waiting considerably more than two further weeks. I gather they are very busy.

This is risible. The BBC needs the support of its more intensive users like never before - the 2016 Licence Fee settlement is likely to be particularly miserable for them. But it is treating its supporters like dirt. The iPlayer is proudly trumpeted when it suits, but for help and complaints it is presented as being a free add-on goody: we are expected to be grateful when it works, but not to be too upset when it proves unusable for weeks on end.

Short of trying to expose these miseries through the national press (and so hurt the BBC when it doesn't need it) has anyone any ideas of how to get anywhere in telling the BBC the bad news that they need to hear?