BBC audio streams demand reaches 6.8 mln hours in February 2005

British Broadcasting Corporation served more than 6.8 mln hours of recorded audioshows to the Web users in February 2005. In January 2005 5 mln hours of audio were streamed off the Internet site. BBC is experimenting with making online streams of its audioprograms available online, and so far 4.4 mln users took the company up on its offer. BBC doesn't offer any data on demographics and origins of the listeners, making it hard to see whether the online users are just time-shifting their audio, having access to full BBC shows in UK, or whether most of the Web streams go abroad, thus creating demand for BBC shows in markets, where radio version is not available.