Forget Jonathan Ross, the BBC's REAL star is a veteran business reporter who's king of the podcasts

But Peter Day, a veteran business reporter on BBC radio, has become an icon for the iPod generation.

A chart of the BBC's most downloaded podcasts – radio shows that can be transferred on to a computer or MP3 player – reveals that Peter Day's World of Business programme is more popular than offerings by the corporation's highly paid household names such as Terry Wogan, Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles and Chris Evans.

Scroll down for more...

More than 730,000 people downloaded Mr Day's weekly podcast during September – 110,000 more than those who downloaded the second-placed show, Best of Chris Moyles, a weekly highlights compilation of his Radio 1 breakfast show.

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see who's in the top 10 BBC podcast chart...

Jonathan Ross was in tenth place with 87,000 downloads for his Radio 2 show. While Moyles is famously arrogant – declaring himself the 'Saviour of Radio 1' – Mr Day is more modest about his new cult status, saying simply that he was 'flattered' to be in the company of such well known presenters.

He puts the popularity of his podcast down to its attempt to appeal to 'people who never realised they were interested in business' and its emphasis on ideas and trends rather than prices, profits and losses. 'What we try to do is to tell compelling stories about the huge changes now sweeping the working world,' he said.

'And because I am neither an economist nor a technologist, I may be able to ask questions a listener wants to hear answered.' The programme's regular coverage of technology matters might explain its popularity among the podcast generation.

But Mr Day said he had been told by several business leaders that they listened to his podcast in the gym.

Mr Day, who has been at the BBC for more than 30 years, presents In Business on Radio4 each Thursday and Global Business every weekend on the World Service. His podcast is a compilation of these shows. Stephen Chilcott, the editor of In Business, said: 'Peter may not be a household name but he's an institution inside the BBC.

'People rave about him in their blogs and young entrepreneurs talk about him in hushed terms, saying he's changed the way they think about business.'

BBC top ten most downloaded podcasts:

1 Best of Moyles (Radio 1)

2 Today 8.10 Interview (Radio 4)

3 Documentary Archive (World Service)

4 From Our Own Correspondent (Radio 4)

5 In Our Time (Radio 4)

6 Mark Kermode's Film Reviews (Five Live)

7 Chris Evans - The Best Bits (Radio 2)

8 Go Digital (World Service)

9 Fighting Talk (Five Live)

10 Sportsweek (Five Live)