Celebrating One Billion Downloads

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 BBC Radio blog

Celebrating One Billion Downloads