BBC Audiobooks’ download sales approached 170,000 downloads in 2005/06 across more than 1,000 titles.The market is growing fast, bringing new audiences to spoken word. Best-selling BBC titles on download include Little Britain, The Time Traveller’s Wife, A Short History of Nearly Everything and Around the World in 80 Days.

Downloads currently account for around 5% of spoken word sales in the UK compared with double that in the US, so there is huge potential. Many new digital retailers are emerging to cater for this fast-growing market and the business is committed to distributing its products across all available platforms. New products will be developed especially for download with the total number of titles on offer increasing dramatically in 2006/07.

The library market, already important to BBC Audiobooks, is also poised to benefit from the digital explosion, both here and in the US, and the business is supporting trials of new digital delivery systems for libraries which are due to start in 2006/07.