Drama on BBC Radio 4 attracted more than one million on demand requests via the BBC Radio Player in January, new figures revealed today.
The Archers remained the most requested on demand programme whilst a dramatisation of RF Delderfield’s To Serve Them All My Days contributed to record on demand listening to Radio 4’s Afternoon Play, which received more than a quarter of a million on demand listening requests.
Comedy programmes on Radio 4 and its sister digital station BBC 7 also proved popular. Just A Minute and The Now Show on Radio 4 achieved top ten placing. BBC 7 gained an impressive five programmes in the top 30 for its archive programmes which include Hancock’s Half Hour, Dad’s Army and Dead Ringers.
In all, the BBC’s radio websites were visited by a record 8.2 million unique users in January, who consumed an unprecedented 17 million hours of live and on demand radio.
The month beat the previous record of 8.1 million users, set in November 2005, as BBC Radio 1 pulled in more than three million users and Radio 4 contributed 1.5 million.
But it was BBC Radio Five Live which showed the biggest increases, with the main site tipping the million mark, whilst offshoot sites 606 and Sportdaq showed huge growth.
In the last full month, with 20 programmes, the download and podcast trial generated a record 1.9 million MP3 downloads.
Radio 4’s In Our Time saw the biggest rise in demand – up 38,000 downloads on December – while the Today 8.10am interview took the top spot with more than 400,000 downloads.
Radio 1 broadband video content received more than 250,000 requests in January.
The most viewed clip was a fitness video featuring Scott Mills, Chris Moyles, Comedy Dave and Colin Murray.
Meanwhile, Jo Whiley enjoyed a month of record on demand listening thanks to the popularity of the show’s Live Lounge sessions, which included performances from Will Young and Arctic Monkeys.