ABC Radio podcasts draw 6.2m monthly listeners

While iHeartRadio is publicly celebrating its impressive user statistics, internal figures from the ABC show that various proprietary podcasts were downloaded 6.2 million times throughout April, with 23.2 million downloads registered so far in 2014.

While Radio National programs accounted for 2.67 million of the April downloads, ’Local’ programming received an impressive 1.3 million downloads, with various triple j podcasts accounting for just over half a million downloads. ABC Classic FM podcasts received 57,695 downloads, while Dig Music, which was in a holding pattern before its official rebranding and relaunch as Double J, saw 352 downloads, no doubt archival or from the April 30 launch. Happily, with Double J’s flood of speciality shows, ABC Radio’s figures may rise higher this month.

Interestingly, the most-downloaded triple j podcasts in April weren’t music related, with Dr. Karl Kruszelnicki’s popular Science on triple j downloaded 219,470 times, and current affairs show Hack receiving 125,067 downloads. Live Music, which does what it says on the tin (104,359 downloads), and Sunday Night Safran (81,424 downloads) were triple j’s other popular shows. The main reason for this is that triple j can’t podcast commercially-released music unless they are their own live recordings, such as Live At The Wireless or Like A Version.

 Conversations with Richard Fidler on Local was the ABC’s most-downloaded podcast overall, with 731,998 for the month.