Harry Potter fans have spent more than a billion hours listening to the audiobook version of the popular fantasy series on Audible, BreakingNews.ie reported. The above milestone has been achieved at a time when Pottermore Publishing is celebrating a decade of digital publishing of the series while the audiobook version first made its debut on Audible seven years ago. The UK editions of the audiobooks have been narrated by Stephen Fry while it’s Jim Dale who lent his voice for the US editions.
Pottermore Publishing also has some interesting figures to share about the one billion hours milestone. As the publishing house estimated, you get to listen to all seven Harry Potter audiobooks read by Dale 8,547,009 times in a billion hours’ time frame. That is also the time that you would perhaps take to ‘go through Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry more than 14,000 times.’
“Living with the ever-expanding Harry Potter family over these past twenty years has been such a joy,” Dale said. “Especially rewarding for me has been the opportunity to touch the lives of so many young people, and the knowledge that my spoken words have brought both comfort and support when needed and, of course, always so much magic.”
“These statistics are astonishing. Almost every day someone will come up and tell me how important the audiobooks have been in their lives, and it means the world to me,” said an elated Fry. “From the first book, when it was all there was of Harry Potter in the world, to the final novel when the series had confirmed itself as the publishing phenomenon of our age, the experience was never anything other than a total and eternally surprising joy for me.”
The first book in the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was first published in 1997 while the seventh and also the last book of the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was published in 2007. The books have since been adapted into a film series comprising eight parts. The films made by Warner Bros Pictures had Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson playing the lead roles.
“The original audiobook narrations are cherished versions of these incredible stories, so we took great care when remastering them from CD to deliver the best sound quality and experience possible for the new generation of listeners,” said Jennie McCann, managing director of Pottermore Publishing. “We’re grateful to Audible for taking these iconic recordings and making them brilliantly accessible and join with them in celebrating this extraordinary and unprecedented milestone.”
Audible stated the one billion hours that its members spent listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks cover all the regions where Audible is available.
“We are honored to be able to bring Harry Potter to listeners around the globe through our collaboration with Pottermore,” said Diana Dapito, head of consumer content at audio platform Audible.
With a keen interest in tech, I make it a point to keep myself updated on the latest developments in technology and gadgets. That includes smartphones or tablet devices but stretches to even AI and self-driven automobiles, the latter being my latest fad. Besides writing, I like watching videos, reading, listening to music, or experimenting with different recipes. The motion picture is another aspect that interests me a lot, and I'll likely make a film sometime in the future.
