Open data remains one of the most significant current trends in public administration, with hundreds of projects around the world seeking to open up stores of public sector information for future re-use for a wide range of hypothesized benefits, especially in terms of enabling citizen participation in government. However, as open data has grown, a critical literature has also emerged which questions who the true beneficiaries of open data are, as well as highlighting the high costs it places on government. Hence, systematic research on the actual outcomes of open data projects is urgently needed. This article seeks to contribute to this area. Based on a unique observational dataset scraped from the website data.gov.uk, this article seeks to explain the factors which promote greater levels of downloads of open government data, and thus shed light on the types of values which are actually supported by such programs. We show that downloads of datasets relevant for private sector enterprise far outnumber downloads of data which could enhance citizen participation through stimulating either government transparency or government efficiency. We also show that well updated datasets with high quality metadata are more likely to be Explaining Download Patterns in Open Government Data 2 downloaded. We conclude by supporting currently developing calls for prioritization in open government data programs.