Record companies agreed a deal with the UK’s commercial radio stations yesterday that will allow music clips in podcasts for the first time.

Now stations such as Capital 95.8, Heart and Magic FM can include up to 30 seconds of music tracks from leading recording artists in podcasts, in a move that the industry hopes will create a new trend of music podcast downloads among listeners.

The deal is set to benefit 324 commercial stations that, until now, have not been able to take full advantage of digital services such as podcasts because of music licensing laws.

The agreement comes at a time when commercial radio stations are struggling to generate revenue from advertising sales and increasingly are looking towards digital opportunities to help to combat falling listener figures.

Radio stations are still in discussions with the PPL, the record company licensing body responsible for agreeing the deal, to gain access to full songs for podcasts, but they welcomed the latest concession.

Nick Piggott, digital content manager for GCap Media, which owns Capital 95.8, said: “Radio stations have, until now, been fairly limited. Virtually all podcasting in the UK has been speech-based, which obviously does not suit music-based stations. This agreement will help podcasts to become more mainstream by increasing their appeal to music listeners.”

Despite the 30-second time restriction, radio companies hope that the clips could be used to produce chart run-downs available via podcast.

BBC radio stations will not be able to take advantage of the new allowance, however. BBC listeners can access streamed music from the website. The PPL refused to comment on whether the agreement would also be opened up to the BBC. The Radio Centre negotiated the deal, which begins with a 12-month trial period, on behalf of all commercial stations.

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