MUMBAI: The BBC Radio Player – which allows people to listen to BBC programmes on the Internet – has reached another significant milestone in clocking up its 250 millionth request for on demand programming, 100 million of which have been in 2005.

The figures were released as 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.

More than 134 million hours - that's almost 15,345 years of continuous listening -.of BBC Radio have been consumed via the Internet this year. Leading the on demand charge in October was BBC Radio 4, which experienced a 25 per cent increase in on demand listening hours. .

BBC Radio and Music Interactive controller Simon Nelson 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."

The figures also show that since January there have been a massive 4.5 million requests for The Archers on demand. The Archers received more than 700,000 listening requests - double the programme's average monthly requests during 2004 - whilst new series Empire debuted at number five in the On Demand Top 30.

BBC 6 Music's rebroadcast of John Peel's 1967 BBC radio debut, as part of its 6 Music Plays It Again strand, became the network's most requested ever programme on demand and contributed to a record 300,000 monthly on demand listening requests for the network.

BBC Radio 1's Keeping It Peel minisite generated three million page impressions in October and helped push the network over three million monthly unique user agents for the first time.