Podcasting network Wizzard Media announced today that it fielded an unprecedented 1.2 billion podcast download requests, averaging of 3.04 million requests for podcast episodes per day, in 2008. Wizzard is comprised of podcast-hosting services Libsyn, Switchpod and Blast Podcast.

The total monthly unique audience size grew by over 100% across the Wizzard Network, from 7 million in 2007 to 15 million in 2008. The company estimates that the Wizzard Network reached 35 million total audience members throughout the course of 2008.

In 2008, Wizzard Media added 10,207 new podcast shows for a total of over 17,000 active shows across the network, up from the 2,831 shows added in 2007. The total number of active episodes on the Wizzard network grew from 400,000 in 2007 to 609,000 in 2008.

“Now we have the enormous variety of Internet media…,” says Chris Spencer, CEO of Wizzard. “An increase of approximately 200 million download requests in one year is mindboggling, considering that each show is about 20 minutes long. That is a million hours of entertainment delivered each day.”

Despite the recent shuttering of podcast network startup Podango, other content delivery networks like Wizzard and Blubrry appear to be weathering the current economic storm and experiencing consistent growth of both their content offerings, and of their listening/viewing audience.