The BBC Radio Player had a record month in March 2006 with more than 20 million hours of online listening and 12 million on demand requests, illustrating the enduring popularity of radio streaming in the podcasting world. BBC Radio 1 led the way with four million hours of live listening and more than 87 million page impressions through a record 3.5 million unique user agents.
Its success was due in part to the troubled love-life of a girl named Laura. A regular feature on the Scott Mills show, Laura’s Diary, spawned One Night with Laura and generated 11.8 million page impressions.
BBC Radio 2 contributed three million live listening hours and more than a million on demand listening hours in the month, while BBC Five Live Sports Extra’s coverage of the India v England Test Series contributed to 500,000 hours of live online listening to the network in March.
BBC radio podcasts received 2.8 million downloads in March ? up more than a million on February.
The Today programme’s 8.10 Interview podcast led the way with 474,357 downloads, while the total was boosted by the addition of a number of new programmes to the trial during the month.
Notable successes amongst the new, daily podcasts include Scott Mills Daily (330,471 downloads), the BBC Radio NewsPod (147,664) and Daily Mayo (61,254).
Chris Moyles remains the most popular weekly podcast (441,832 downloads) while In Our Time ? the first podcast from a British broadcaster when it was launched in November 2004 – showed its timeless appeal with 255,878 downloads.
Overall traffic to BBC Radio websites exceeded 290 million page impressions for the first time in March with a record 9.3 million unique user agents logging on over the course of the month.