Thursday, February 28, 2019

BBC Radio 1 Essay

How is the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show reaching, targeting and encouraging audience interaction?


The BBC Radio 1 breakfast show uses a variety of strategic ways in order to reach and target their audience. For example, they have quizzes that are only heard if you listen to the breakfast show. Therefore, people who are intrigued/interested in the quizzes would have to listen multiple times to the breakfast show in order to find out the answers to the quiz. Also, they do a segment called 'unpopular opinions' where the listeners of the show share the opinion on certain topics that would normally be disagreed by the majority of people if asked.



The target audience for the Radio 1 breakfast show is 15-29-year-olds and this is very evident on the music that is played. Meaning that the songs played are used to target different social groups (e.g. edgy songs for edgy people etc.). A mix of contemporary music and speech is used in order to engage people to the show. Radio 1 have been suffering because their core audience began turning away from live radio. A main reason for this is the use of streaming services (like Spotify). As the years have gone on, there have been technological advancements allowing younger generations to access the internet and social media. Nowadays, the target audience of the radio spend a lot of time on their phones which is why they are so used to doing things that include their phone. Hence, why the radio is listened to a lot less than it would be if phones were not as popular. Due to the audience being British, predominantly British music is played (53%) and so this is a way that emphasizes the country’s pride in our good music and artists.  



BBC Radio 1 has had a change in presenters since they began. Currently, Greg James is the presenter of BBC Radio 1 since the 20th August 2018. He has brought a lot to the show for the short amount of time he has hosted. Since he took over Nick Grimshaw, James has brought higher statistics/ratings to the show. He has done this by engaging with the audience a lot more within the radio everyday by playing quizzes and little games to add a sense of fun to the show. These games include: 'Unpopular Opinions' - where he gets 5 people from the audience on the line to give an unpopular opinion, 'Jan Slam' - where every day in January, they hosted this where you have to answer a few questions and text into the show (resulting in a prize every day, like tickets to sports games/festivals) and '10 Minute Takeover' - where Greg James chooses 3-4 people who are listening in to choose any song to play on the radio. Consequently, Greg James has made the audience go up by 240,000 people since Nick Grimshaw hosted the show. He is a very significant part and reason as to why Radio 1 is now becoming more successful again. Even though Greg James and Nick Grimshaw have both brought their own element to BBC Radio 1, Greg James has had more views/listeners. Nick Grimshaw took over in order to try and influence people of aged 30+ to tune in to the show and view/listen in. However, there were less viewings from his takeover and when Greg James then took over, he stuck with the original 15-29-year-old audience and consequently, made the statistics increase again. One of the games that BBC Radio has done is ‘Pass the pasty’. This game was created because a caller in mentioned that she had never had a pasty before and so a pasty was then passed all around the country from Cornwall all the way to Scotland. This is a great example of how the radio interacted/engaged with its audience as many people participated in order to drive the pasty to its destination.



Radio 1 uses a strategy referred to as the 'trail of breadcrumbs'. This is a strategy that is used by the radio in a way of recognising what he audience wants. They do this by monitoring comments and feedback on all platforms (including YouTube and Instagram etc.). This aids in keeping the content relevant to their target audience. All of the social media advertises the radio station and publicises the great content that they have. Not only do the comments and feedback help with the number of viewers, but when people share posts on platforms like Facebook, it is a very quick way for the radio station to spread news to draw more people in.



The news is broadcasted every half an hour where things like Brexit, other political debates and crimes are discussed. As well as this, they talk about personal stories and celebrities in order to interest everyone.


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