Absolute Radio has also signed a new deal with British Gas as they become the first sponsors of the station’s entire podcast and mobile application proposition.

This sponsorship is in addition to British Gas’ sponsorship of the station’s flagship Christian O’Connell Breakfast Show and the integrated campaign will include sponsorship of all podcasts for the station, sponsorship of all mobile application platforms, a homepage takeover of www.absoluteradio.co.uk, live reads on air as well as ads on the station’s iTunes channel.

Absolute Radio’s podcast service continues to grow with a record 936,000 podcasts served in February – a massive 45,000 more than the previous record month in January.

Streamed hours also continue to grow as the Absolute Radio Network (Absolute Radio, Absolute Classic Rock, Absolute 80s and dabbl)  streamed via the Internet a record 7.5 million hours of live digital audio in February, up 7% from January.

We continue to publicly release monthly details of live streamed listening hours for the Absolute Radio Network to provide an accurate measure of engagement giving greater insight into how listeners hear it’s output via the internet and providing further accountability for advertisers. No other commercial radio station makes this information public and Absolute Radio is working hard across the industry to ensure it provides consistent figures.

Monthly figures for the network are available here.