The BBC reports that its digital home for all audio now has around 3 million weekly users, up from 1.3 million in June. As well as the rapid increase in weekly users on BBC Sounds, there have been more than 630 million plays of audio on Sounds across podcasts, live and on demand radio programmes and music mixes.
Between February and November 2019, there was a 74 per cent increase in plays of podcasts and on demand radio programmes on the BBC.
Controller of BBC Sounds, Jonathan Wall, commented: “It’s just over a year since we launched BBC Sounds and we’ve seen huge growth to around 3 million weekly users. Sounds has allowed us to up our creative ambition and this year’s various hit BBC podcasts are brilliant examples of how we can make audio with great new UK talent on and off mic that sounds different. We’ll be launching new podcasts in early 2020 so there’s plenty more binge worthy audio to come on BBC Sounds.”
Some of this year’s biggest BBC podcast hits are (all figures are combined downloads or plays on BBC Sounds and other platforms in the UK and outside of the UK):
The Global News Podcast was downloaded or played more than 145 million times in the UK and around the world this year. The podcast with the latest from the football world, Football Daily, had more than 22.5 million and the most popular episode was: Liverpool And ‘The Greatest European Comeback Of All Time’.
Around half of people in the UK who listen to BBC podcasts each week are under 35. The number of weekly users is across the app, website and voice activated devices; and is above the average iPlayer Radio audiences before we launched BBC Sounds.
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