BBC podcast Forest 404 in the top spot

Our podcast Forest 404 has been available for a month now and I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on what has been a really ambitious project.

I’m loving how well it’s going down with listeners, especially those who’ve never tried an audio drama before. Over the Easter holiday it took the number one slot in the iTunes UK charts, a first for an audio drama or fiction podcast, which I’m incredibly proud of. It’s been in the top ten ever since.

I’m equally proud of what listeners have said directly about the podcast. The #Forest404 twitter thread has provided some great reviews: ‘Exactly the sort of story-telling I love’, ‘Thought-provoking and beautiful’, ‘Gripped by the intense, intimate writing’, ‘creepy, immersive and brilliant’, ’[my] new podcast obsession.’

Tackling the important topics

It felt quite neat to launch BBC Radio 4’s Forest 404 on BBC Sounds at 4 minutes past 4pm on 4 April. More importantly, we wanted to reflect one of the biggest global issues of today and I’m proud of just how timely it was. The drama is set in the 24th Century in a time where the earth’s forests have been erased from history.

Of course much of April 2019 has been about Extinction Rebellion on the streets of London, young campaigner Greta Thunberg talking to politicians and David Attenborough’s landmark TV programme Climate Change: The Facts. It’s been great to feel this BBC podcast has landed in the middle of this national conversation. We will keep commissioning podcasts that reflect on the most important topics of our time.

It’s what you’ll continue to see us do with an ever increasing range of talent, both inside and outside the BBC. Through more close partnerships between Radio 4 and BBC Sounds like this one, we can appeal to new listeners who choose to listen digitally as well as provide ambitious new content about important topics and human experience to a wide audience including those who already know and love our radio stations. You can see this in action with some of our recent audio book commissions, Hunger by Roxane Gay and Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. Both are really honest takes on life by women with incredibly powerful stories to tell.

Trying something new

Forest 404 has been a big, innovative podcast project for us and unlike anything that’s been tried before - we think the three-tiered podcast approach is the first one of its kind. It’s a nine part eco thriller, and each episode has two shorter companion episodes. One gives you a clean soundscape, sounds of a rainforest or frog chorus for example, and the other gives you the facts behind the episode - like science or nature footnotes come to life. So you can choose to follow the thriller in nine eps or go for the full monty with 27.

It’s a Radio 4 podcast plait of story, sound and fact; and immersing listeners in the world it creates like this is something we could only do on-demand. Great podcasting, just like great radio, has storytelling at its heart but we can be experimental and imaginative with content and form in our podcasts in a unique way. Forest 404 is a great example of how we can make different sounding on-demand content, with a different listening experience in mind.

Forest 404 has always been about collaboration; from the brilliant creative team in Bristol who worked with writer Timothy X Atak to create the drama, to teams in London who put together the delivery and support plans. We had a brilliant all-female cast in Pearl Mackie, Pippa Heywood and Tanya Moodie too. Their performances have been highly praised by reviewers and audiences alike. The theme music, composed especially by Bonobo, has proved popular too.

The experiment

With our partners on this project, at the Universities of Exeter and Bristol, we’re also running a scientific experiment. People can report back on the effect listening to the soundscapes has had on their own physiology. We’ll be sharing the results of that later in the year.

We’ve been experimenting with delivery too. The complete set of podcasts has been available on BBC Sounds from 4 April, but users of other podcast apps have been immersing themselves in the woodland world a little slower, at the rate of three episodes a week. This means people can enjoy Forest 404 where they choose to but can binge on them on BBC Sounds, so it’s been an interesting experiment in listening habits.

We’re delighted it’s been so well received as it’s exactly what BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds is about, it’s why we’re here - to bring amazingly creative people together to push boundaries and make new experiences for our listeners. To offer a take on the world we live in - one that opens up our minds to different ideas.

Want to listen to Forest 404? Head over to BBC Sounds now.