BBC Radio 3 Beethoven downloads top one million

by Sam Matthews, Brand Republic 22-Jul-05, 11:00

LONDON - BBC Radio 3 has notched up over 1m requests for downloads of live performances of Beethoven's nine symphonies as part a free downloading trial during the Beethoven Experience season.

The symphonies, which were performed by the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester and conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, attracted 1,369,893 requests from June 6 to July 7.

Roger Wright, controller BBC Radio 3, said the project far exceeded any ambition the corporation had for it.

"This download experiment began as an added extra to our Beethoven Experience and quickly took on a life of its own. The remarkable number of downloads has already sparked a healthy debate about the place of classical music in the digital world.

"I am thrilled that Radio 3 has shown how wide the interest is in quality classical music and demonstrated how innovation and the use of new technology can find new audiences," he said.

The free downloads were offered as part of a BBC trial of the technology to complenment the Beethoven season, which saw a week of TV shows devoted to the composer, as well as output across Radio 3 and interactive.

The Beethoven Experience marked the corporation's largest focus to date on a single creative artist and included a three-part drama/documentary series called 'Beethoven', starring Paul Rhys and presented by conductor Charles Hazlewood, charting the composer's troubled life and examining some of his greatest works.

The MP3 offer was set up to gauge audiences' appetite for music downloads and guide the corporation's future strategy for audio downloads and on-demand content.

"Downloading technologies can transform the value we deliver to listeners and make our programmes more accessible for both new and existing audiences," said Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio and Music Interactive.

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