Bbc Radio & Music Services
★ Only Publicly Available OpenAPI DocumentMediaAudio Processingnone75 EndpointsREST
For Agents
Browse BBC Radio broadcasts, schedules, and music collections, plus manage a user's follows, favourites, and music exports. Useful for media catalogue agents and personalised radio assistants.
Use for: I need to fetch the latest BBC Radio broadcasts, List all music categories on BBC Music, Get the most popular tracks on BBC Music right now, Follow a music category for the current user
Not supported: Does not handle TV programmes, iPlayer video playback, or news content — use for BBC Radio broadcasts, BBC Music browsing, and per-user music personalisation only.
The BBC Radio and Music Services (RMS) API encapsulates the metadata and personalisation logic that powers iPlayer Radio and BBC Music across web, mobile, and connected devices. It surfaces broadcasts and schedules, music categories and collections, popular artists, playlists and tracks, and a per-user 'my' namespace for follows, favourites, and music export jobs. With 75 endpoints, the API is the canonical source of broadcast metadata for any client integrating BBC Radio listings, station experiences, or personalised music recommendations.
Install Jentic One Beta
Connect the Radio & Music Services to your agent
Jentic One is a self-hosted execution layer for AI agents. It lets your agent call the Radio & Music Services, or any other public or private API you need. You set the rules, the agent never sees your credentials, and every call is logged.
Two steps, two machines. Install the instance in a safe environment, then register your agent from wherever it runs.
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Step 1: Jentic One Host machine
# On the machine that will host your Jentic One instance:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh2
Step 2: Agent machine
# On the machine where your agent runs (keep this separate from the instance):
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jentic/jentic-one/main/tools/install.sh | sh
jentic register # connects your agent to your Jentic One instanceJentic One is in public beta. The setup above keeps your agent separate from the instance, which is what you want before using real credentials: an agent running as the same OS user as Jentic One can read its stored keys directly. Just evaluating? A single local install is fine to start. See the secure deployment guide for the tiers.
Capabilities
What an agent can do with Radio & Music Services API.
Fetch the latest broadcasts or a specific broadcast by PID with /broadcasts and /broadcasts/{pid}
Browse music categories and category members via /categories and /collections/{pid}/members
Pull popular artists, playlists, and tracks from /music/popular/* endpoints
Manage a user's category follows with GET, POST, and DELETE /my/categories/follows
Trigger and track music export jobs via /my/music/exports/jobs
Render the homepage experience payload via GET /experience/homepage
Use Cases
Patterns agents use Radio & Music Services API for, with concrete tasks.
★ BBC Radio Listings Client
A connected radio device or Alexa skill needs to display 'what's on now' across BBC Radio stations. The RMS API provides GET /broadcasts/latest for currently airing programmes and GET /broadcasts/{pid} for full programme metadata. The client can render the schedule, jump to live audio, and surface programme art using a single backend call per station.
Call GET /broadcasts/latest, render the current programme on each station, and refresh on a 60-second interval
Personalised Music Discovery
BBC Music's recommendation surfaces are powered by category follows and popular-content endpoints. Apps can call GET /my/categories/follows to read the user's followed genres, then GET /music/popular/tracks and /music/popular/artists to suggest new content. Adding a follow is a POST /my/categories/follows away.
GET /my/categories/follows, then for each followed category call GET /music/popular/tracks?category={id} and surface the top three tracks
Music Export Job Tracking
Listeners exporting their BBC Music history (favourites, plays) trigger an export job via POST /my/music/exports/jobs. The client polls GET /my/music/exports/jobs to track progress, then fetches the resulting tracks with GET /my/music/exports/tracks once the job completes. This flow is suitable for data-portability automations and account-cleanup agents.
POST /my/music/exports/jobs, poll GET /my/music/exports/jobs every 30 seconds, and call GET /my/music/exports/tracks when status is complete
Catalogue and Collection Browser
Editorial tooling that surfaces BBC Music collections (curated playlists, themed groupings) can use GET /collections/{pid}/members to enumerate the items in a collection and GET /categories/{id} for category metadata. The endpoints support pagination so even large collections can be walked predictably.
Call GET /categories, then for each category fetch GET /collections/{pid}/members to build a faceted browse experience
Agent-Driven Music Lookup via Jentic
A voice-assistant agent answering 'what was playing on Radio 1 at 8pm' can use the BBC Radio & Music API through Jentic to query broadcasts and collections without managing client code. Jentic exposes the 75 RMS operations as discoverable tools indexed by natural-language intent.
Search Jentic for 'fetch latest bbc radio broadcasts', load the GET /broadcasts/latest schema, and execute to return current on-air programmes
Key Endpoints
75 endpoints — the bbc radio and music services (rms) api encapsulates the metadata and personalisation logic that powers iplayer radio and bbc music across web, mobile, and connected devices.
METHOD
PATH
DESCRIPTION
GET
/broadcasts/latest
Get the latest broadcasts across BBC Radio stations
GET
/broadcasts/{pid}
Fetch metadata for a specific broadcast
GET
/categories
List music categories
GET
/music/popular/tracks
Get popular tracks on BBC Music
GET
/my/categories/follows
List categories the current user follows
POST
/my/categories/follows
Follow a music category
POST
/my/music/exports/jobs
Trigger a music export job
GET
/experience/homepage
Get the BBC Music homepage experience payload
GET
/broadcasts/latest
Get the latest broadcasts across BBC Radio stations
GET
/broadcasts/{pid}
Fetch metadata for a specific broadcast
GET
/categories
List music categories
GET
/music/popular/tracks
Get popular tracks on BBC Music
GET
/my/categories/follows
List categories the current user follows
POST
/my/categories/follows
Follow a music category
POST
/my/music/exports/jobs
Trigger a music export job
GET
/experience/homepage
Get the BBC Music homepage experience payload
Why Jentic?
Three things that make agents converge on Jentic-routed access.
Credential isolation
Where /my/* endpoints require a BBC Account session, the session token is stored encrypted in the Jentic vault. Public endpoints (broadcasts, categories, popular music) need no credentials but are still routed through Jentic's discovery layer.
Intent-based discovery
Agents search by intent (e.g. 'fetch latest bbc radio broadcasts' or 'list popular bbc music tracks') and Jentic returns matching RMS operations with their input schemas across the 75 available endpoints.
Time to first call
Direct integration: 2-3 days to map the 75 RMS endpoints, handle BBC Account auth for /my/* paths, and build pagination logic. Through Jentic: under an hour for the most common queries — search, load schema, execute.
Related APIs
Alternatives and complements available in the Jentic catalogue.
FAQs
Specific to using Radio & Music Services API through Jentic.
What authentication does the BBC Radio & Music Services API use?
The OpenAPI spec does not declare a security scheme — most read endpoints (broadcasts, categories, popular music) are public. The /my/* endpoints (follows, exports) imply a BBC Account session, which the client must establish via the standard BBC iD flow. Through Jentic, any session credentials are stored in the vault.
Can I get the BBC Radio schedule with this API?
Yes. GET /broadcasts/latest returns currently airing programmes across stations and GET /broadcasts/{pid} fetches a specific broadcast's metadata. For station-by-station listings, walk /broadcasts with the appropriate filters.
How do I fetch popular BBC Music tracks through Jentic?
Search Jentic for 'popular bbc music tracks', which surfaces GET /music/popular/tracks. Load the schema and execute. Jentic returns the current popular tracks payload, which you can filter by category or artist client-side.
What are the rate limits for the BBC Radio & Music API?
The OpenAPI spec does not declare explicit rate limits. The RMS API is intended for BBC's own clients, so apply conservative polling (no faster than once per minute for broadcast endpoints) and back off on any 429 or 5xx response.
Can I follow a music category for a user?
Yes, the API exposes a /my namespace: GET /my/categories/follows lists current follows, POST /my/categories/follows adds one, and DELETE /my/categories/follows removes one. These endpoints require the user to be authenticated against their BBC Account.
Does the BBC Radio & Music API support exporting a user's music data?
Yes. POST /my/music/exports/jobs triggers an export job, GET /my/music/exports/jobs returns job status, and GET /my/music/exports/tracks fetches the exported tracks. The flow is asynchronous — poll for completion before pulling results.
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