Controller Ben Cooper is to hire two new employees to become social media DJs for BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra.
Ben made the announcement on stage at the Radio Festival, saying that’s how he’s planning to stay relevant to younger audiences.
Twitter Jocks are hired in the States by Cleal Channel but no UK radio station has taken the idea further as yet.
The station has examined the ‘bed to bed’ typical day of listeners, which starts and end with people checking their mobile phone and during the day includes computers and television.
In the last month, 10 people clicked on a video on Radio 1’s YouTube channel every second, and the station’s new video channel will contain home made content. “We’re not competing with Capital TV or MTV by playing pop music, just our own content, and what we call DJ LOLs,” Ben said.
In the session, called ‘Why the youth market matters’, Kiss boss Andy Roberts also said he doesn’t think of Kiss as a radio station and that content is the future.
Ben concluded by saying: “The future is bright, the future is storytelling, but it is all about devices and multi platform.”
BBC Radio 1’s Twitter account has over 1.5 followers and nearly 1.5m Likes on Facebook. The station’s YouTube channel has 550,000 subscribers online and receives nearly 12 million views a month (average June 2012 to June 2013). From 24th August to 22nd September this year seven people per second clicked play on a Radio 1 video, making it the most popular radio station on YouTube.
Posted on Tuesday, October 15th, 2013 at 12:03 pm by RadioToday UK