The latest data shows there were a total of 364 million plays of all content across radio, podcasts and music mixes on BBC Sounds last quarter, between October and December 2021.
Plays for on-demand radio and podcasts reached 162 million.
Things Fell Apart by Jon Ronson was critically acclaimed and the most popular new podcast in the quarter, with listeners drawn in by the human stories from the history of the culture wars.
Another new podcast, Uncanny, from the team behind The Battersea Poltergeist including Danny Robins, was also very popular, gripping the audience with its investigations into real-life paranormal stories.
Newscast and You’re Dead To Me topped the chart, with all four appearing in the top ten for all adults and under 35s. Match Of The Day: Top Ten topped the list for number of under 35 listeners.
The straight-talking podcast Pressed had the highest proportion of listeners under 35 for the second quarter running, followed by the enduring 6 Degrees With Jamie And Spencer. New series’ The Footballer’s Football Podcast and Legends Fall In The Making also proved popular with younger listeners on BBC Sounds last quarter.
BBC podcasts and radio programmes on third party platforms saw a total of 257 million global podcast downloads across the world during this quarter, Global News Podcast (BBC World Service), The Documentary (BBC World Service) and In Our Time (Radio 4) once again proved the most popular.
The Christmas Sounds series proved hugely popular last quarter, contributing to a record 5.2 million plays of all music mixes on BBC Sounds between October and December 2021.
There was also a record peak of 4 million weekly users in December, as many people tuned in live to the Today Programme and listened to Newscast on BBC Sounds as news of the Omicron variant and booster programme were announced.
Since its launch, a number of podcasts have been either available only or first on BBC Sounds, giving listeners easy access to them on the BBC’s own digital platform.
From March, a small number of radio programmes will also be available for on-demand listening first on BBC Sounds.
New episodes of some of the BBC’s radio programmes broadcast on Radio 4 or 5 Live will only be available on-demand on BBC Sounds for a month, then after 28 days, they will also be available on other audio platforms through the RSS feed.
Mary Hough, Head of Content Discovery for BBC Sounds says it gives licence fee payers even more value so people can discover more content.
“The world of audio listening is constantly changing, and the global tech giants are more routinely publishing content exclusively on their platforms.
“We want to make sure people can easily find new things from the BBC and can’t rely on other platforms, who have their own exclusive content and a global catalogue to promote, to do this for us.”
“We’re doing this as a trial to see what the impact is on listening on BBC Sounds and we hope listeners do use this as an opportunity to try out Sounds, and discover and enjoy more brilliant BBC audio.
“We know people have established ways of listening to on-demand audio but we also know many people already use multiple apps and platforms to listen to their favourite content.
“BBC Sounds is improving all the time and now has lots of features which we know are popular with listeners such as allowing people to continue listening between different devices, to pause and rewind live radio, and improved ways of recommending something new to try.”
