The recent pronouncement of the death of the album by the BBC’s George Ergatoudis was seen as a blunt message to the music industry delivered on behalf of young people. But the Beeb’s Radio 1 is facing its own existential threat from that same audience: the rise of YouTube as an (arguably) more relevant music discovery and consumption platform for teenagers. The station has already hired several YouTubers as DJs in order to tap into that relevance, and on Friday, it announced a new move: a weekly show to be “visualised and streamed” on the Radio 1 website. Its stars will be YouTubers with a collective 27m subscribers on the online video site, including Zoella, Tyler Oakley, TomSka, Marcus Butler and Troye Sivan. “Traditional youth broadcasters must adapt or die. It would be short-sighted to dismiss the importance of vloggers and ignore the new breed of presenting talent that are so influential to young audiences,” said Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper.
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools :: We Are Giant
With “fan communities” being on every artist’s team’s mind, we’re fans of the fact that…