We are hoping to get the Podcasts back on iTunes with Apple, but at the moment this may not be possible.
Counter-intuitively the problem seems to be WordPress, where we were hosting the site. In the past we would use their Free plan or a basic Paid-For plan that removed advertising and allowed limited hosting. This paid-for plan was charged at a round £35 per year, with special-offers coming around now and then.
Now it seems we would need to pay £15 per month (plus VAT at 20% in the UK).
As we haven’t changed to the new tariff – an increase of over 500% – this explains the Apple problem. The Podcast files are no-longer available from WordPress unless we pay the new fee.
While the new monthly fee may not seem like a lot, the fact it is such a disproportionate increase, and without warning, does not bode well for future reliability.
The official desmondbagley.co.uk web-domain will remain constant whichever host we use.
Edit: 1st November 2022 - WordPress may have listened to disgruntled bloggers because they have now brought their prices down again to pre-increase levels. Currently back to £36 per annum.
