BBC Radio Blog Feed

Celebrating One Billion Downloads

Sami Qasem — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 12:32:00 +0000

Starting today 'One Billion Downloads: A Selection Box' features a different presenter each day, introducing their favourite BBC podcast.

It's been just over a year since I joined the Audio Visual Team in Audio and Music Interactive and was given what I think of as one of the best jobs at the BBC - looking after the BBC's Podcast Service.

There are currently around 300 podcasts on the site, from Annie Mac's Mini Mix on Radio 1 to Graham Norton on Radio 2 and The Infinite Monkey Cage on Radio 4. We've been offering podcasts of many of our programmes since 2007. We know from our research that for many of you it's a great way to listen on the go.

It's been a year of celebrations and a few firsts for the team.

We released the Desert Island Discs archive and currently there are almost one thousand episodes of this classic available to download and keep. There was the first pan-BBC podcast marking the Royal Wedding, which pulled together all the best bits across BBC Radio in one daily podcast.

We've now have 15 million downloads a month in the UK and recently passed one billion downloads worldwide since we started.

According to industry body RAJAR 8.5 million adults in the UK have downloaded a podcast in 2011 compared to 4.3 million in 2007. This is good news for the industry as a whole as nearly a third of people who download podcasts listen to new radio programmes they hadn't previously heard as a result.

In order to celebrate this momentous milestone (apart from a group high-five in the office) we've decided to do what we do best and to make a podcast of it.

We love podcasts and so do lots of our presenters so we asked them to introduce you to their favourites through our new pop-up podcast: One Billion Downloads: A Selection Box.

Starting today One Billion Downloads: A Selection Box features a different presenter each day, introducing their favourite BBC podcast.

Kicking the whole thing off is the amazing Lauren Laverne from BBC 6 Music. Lauren has often tweeted and commented about her favourite podcasts so she was top of our list but which podcast did she pick? Download it and find out!

One Billion Downloads: A Selection Box will run for 5 days and all the programmes will be available for 7 days after that.

There are lots of big projects on the horizon for the podcast service, including another pan-BBC Radio podcast, celebrating the run-up to the Olympics in 2012 and bringing you the best coverage from all across BBC Radio all in one place.

Sami Qasem is a Content Producer for Audio Visual Services, BBC A&Mi

Read BBC podcasts hit 1 billion downloads in the Telegraph
Radio Today: BBC Radio celebrates billion downloads
Broadcast: BBC Radio tops billion downloads
BBC Media Centre: BBC Radio celebrates billionth download (with top ten charts for daily and weekly podcast downloads)

The Specialist Classical Chart Podcast is back - this time for good!

Andrew Caspari — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 15:45:00 +0000

One of my recent joys working on our interactive services for BBC Radio has been receiving our monthly figures for downloads and podcasts from our site. Last month listeners successfully put 14.8 million downloads on their PCs or mobile devices.

That's up from 9.8 million in July last year. One of the reasons for the increase is the boost in the number of speech programmes we can now offer. The recent release of 500 editions of Desert Island Discs and the archive of the Reith Lectures has proved very popular. Podcasting is a great way to build up your own collection of programmes to enjoy whenever and wherever you want!

And although we have done great things with speech content, it's not been so straightforward with music in podcasts. So I'm really pleased to say that, as of today, we're bringing back a podcast which should appeal especially to classical music fans.

Although to date we've released many podcasts containing the speech content of classical music programmes, such as Composer of the Week, we've not been able to include longer extracts of classical music. That's because we don't have the rights or the permission to do this, and the BBC has been wary of doing anything that might adversely affect the commercial classical music industry.

But now, something has changed. Working with the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) earlier this year we tested a podcast of the segment of Radio 3 Breakfast that covers the Specialist Classical Music Chart every Tuesday morning. This includes a number of excerpts of music from the chart, each of which can be up to 9 minutes long.

The audience seemed to like the offer.

What's more, any fears that it might discourage people from buying classical music or listening to live radio proved unfounded. In fact nearly 25% of those who listened to the podcast said they were inspired to listen to more live radio, whilst 70% said they were listening to the same amount (eDigital Research for the BBC). 80% of listeners said the podcast had introduced them to music they had not heard before. Good news for the music industry came with the finding that 25% of listeners to the chart podcast had purchased classical music as a result. The BPI's classical committee is pleased with the outcome, saying the podcast supports the work to "...obtain a wider audience for the specialist classical chart and for serious classical music in general". So, all in all the trial was a success.

Now the BBC Trust has agreed to a change in the Radio 3 service licence to allow the Specialist Classical Music Chart to become a permanent offer from the BBC. The podcast is back from today, and you can download it here. As a distinctly average guitarist, I'm delighted that a classical guitar release is top of the chart at the moment, so I hope an extract of the number one is included.

Andrew Caspari is BBC Head of Speech Radio and Classical Music, Interactive

The picture (from 1970) shows "Otto Klemperer who celebrated the bi-centenary of Beethoven's birth by conducting his nine symphonies in sequence with the New Philharmonic Orchestra".

Podcasts available for longer

Mark Friend — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 14:00:00 +0000

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts

We know that the BBC's podcasts are hugely popular with people who know about them and understand how to get hold of them. A recent example is A History of the World in 100 Objects which has had over 12 million downloads so far, over the course of the series. I like this example, first because it's a big number but also because the content itself is stunning.

I also like this example because we've made every episode of the 100-part series available rather than the normal approach of withdrawing the podcasts 7 days after the original programme was broadcast. This means that if you only discovered the series half-way through its 9-month run, it's easy to download any or all of the previous episodes to listen to whenever it suits you.

In research we've recently conducted listeners have been telling us that we should make more podcast episodes available for longer than seven days. More than 75% of podcast users say they want that.

As a result we're now providing extended availability for all podcasts where it makes editorial sense and where the BBC has the rights. This means that:

30 days availability will become the norm for weekly podcasts
Most of Radio 4's podcasts will be available in perpetuity (40 out of the current 60 titles)
News and sports podcasts will normally remain available for 7 days only, as topical information goes out of date quickly and there is little evidence of people wanting to subscribe to older programmes
Daily podcasts will typically be available for 7 days only
Some shows will be available for 7 days only because of rights restrictions: Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4, for instance

We're planning further changes because our research also tells us that many people find it hard to engage with our podcasts. There are too many barriers to trying them out and we want to reach out to the people who don't currently use them by demystifying the whole process. Next on the list are: building podcasts into iPlayer and improving the BBC's podcast pages on non-BBC sites like iTunes and on other platforms.

Mark Friend is Controller of Audio & Music Interactive at the BBC

In another change, you can now download Radio 3's weekly specialist classical chart to keep - with up to nine minutes of music from each featured album. Download the chart and read Radio 3 Interactive Editor Gabriel Gilson's blog post about it.
The BBC podcasts page lists 268 programmes you can download and keep. All of the national networks are represented and many local stations. The World Service has 70 and Radio 4 60.
Picture by John Nuttall. Used under licence.