The equivalent to 15,345 years of continuous listening has been consumed via the internet on The BBC Radio Player this year, reports UK Radio.com.

The BBC Radio Player allows people to listen to BBC programmes on demand via the Internet. BBC Radio websites broke all their previous records in October, with 7.7 million unique user agents visiting the sites and listening to 16.4 million hours of radio online.

The figures show that since January there have been a massive 4.5 million on demand requests for BBC Radio 4’s The Archers and in October, the network experienced a 25% increase for on-demand listening hours.

The Archers received more than 700,000 monthly listening requests which is double the programme’s average monthly requests compared to last year and the new series ‘Empire’ debuted at number five in the On Demand Top 30.

BBC 6 Music’s most requested programme-on-demand was the rebroadcast of John Peel’s 1967 BBC radio debut which contributed to a record 300,000 monthly on demand listening requests.

BBC Radio 1’s Keeping It Peel mini-site generated three million page impressions in October, helping to push the network over three million monthly unique user agents for the first time.

Simon Nelson, Controller of BBC Radio & Music Interactive, said: “These incredible figures show that people really value the option of listening online and catching up with their favourite programmes if they miss them.”