Podcasts driving radio audiences up

More than 9 million downloading on a weekly basis

2 July 2008 17:13 GMT / By Katie Scott

More and more of us are listening to the radio via the internet.

According to a surbey commissioned by the industry's audience research body Rajar, more than 14 million people in the UK are listening to output on the web every week and more than 9 million downloading podcasts on a weekly basis.

The research was carried out in April and May shows the radio live streaming and listen again services such as the BBC iPlayer, which is now offering radio as well as TV services, are gaining an increasing number of fans.

In fact, internet listening was up by 2.5 million people on the previous survey, which was conducted in October and November 2007.

In the 2007 survey, listen again use was 8.1 million in any given week, 1.3 million fewer than the latest survey's figure.

And these services are encouraging us to listen to radio shows we may not have listened to before.

And almost half of the people surveyed said they are now listening to radio programmes to which they did not listen previously.

The average user of listen again services listens to 1.8 programmes each week in this way.

According to the survey, 6 million people in the UK have now downloaded a podcast - up from 4.3 million in November 2007.

And 3.7 million now say they listen to a podcast each week, up from 1.87 million in last year's survey.

But what are listening to - comedy and music are the two favourite genres; and iTunes remains the preferred software for almost three-quarters of users who subscribe to podcasts.

Apple must be happy.