BBC online radio benefits from Ashes coverage

BBC online radio benefits from Ashes coverage

bbc

MUMBAI: Live coverage of The Ashes contributed to another record month of online listening to BBC Radio in the UK. Desk-bound cricket fans kept up-to-date with England's progress.

Five Live Sports Extra and Radio 4 LW both eclipsed their previous online listening records by more than 300 per cent in August, notching up two million and 250,000 hours of live online listening respectively.

The networks' figures - buoyed by office workers keen to follow the action on the Internet – contributed to a monthly total of 16.1 million hours of live and on demand listening.

BBC 7's wide range of programming in August – from a Little Britain night to a Bill Nighy weekend - brought increased traffic to the station's website, with more than 460,000 unique user agents visiting during the month.

Between them they consumed more than a million hours of BBC 7 on demand and secured the network six programmes in August's On Demand Top 30.

This year's Proms attracted more than 385,000 on demand listens - a 66 per cent increase on last year.