Radio 1 will be on the road in 2022
The days of the Radio 1 Roadshow are confined to the pages of history now, but this year Radio 1 is set to broadcast from across the country.
There were lots of interesting things to read in the BBC’s Annual Plan for 2022–23, not the least of which a very interesting revelation about Radio 1, set to begin next week. Let’s delve into all the commitments about Radio 1 from the BBC for the year ahead:
“The BBC’s music radio stations will continue to provide their existing news schedules providing news and current affairs for a range of audiences. • Radio 1 and 1Xtra’s Newsbeat programmes will focus on issues of particular concern for young audiences”. More or less just a reassertion of the unique role Newsbeat plays by providing news and current affairs to young people listening to a predominately music station and bringing them information that wouldn’t be exposed to elsewhere.
“Radio 1 will broadcast at least 40 new documentaries relevant to its audience, including iconic moments in music, all told by the people that were there. This will cover a broad range of genres and events including Scotland’s legendary T in the Park, how Drum & Bass changed UK clubbing culture and K-Pop’s rise in the UK”. This sounds great to me; and hopefully we see one off evening slots given to these shows to be heard, rather than simply going out at 3am so they can go on Sounds, also lots of promotion for people to access them on the aforementioned Sounds. There’s an Arctic Monkeys celebration at 9PM on Easter Monday, hopefully we see more stuff in that vein, which Radio 1 is very good at doing and has the resources to do well.
“Radio 1 will ensure it continues to offer a distinct music mix compared to commercial music radio stations”. Another reassertion of the norm, no additional targets. Radio 1 will broadcast over 3,500 hours of specialist music programming this year, including launching a BBC Introducing Rock and a new Radio 1’s Future alternatives playlist focusing on youth focused ALT genres such as PopPunk, AltRock, NuMetal and RapRock. • Radio 1 will broadcast at least 175 live or specially recorded sessions from a broad range of artists, from guitar and rock, to freestyles, DJ sets and piano sessions.” All good goals, the look at genres young people are listening to that we hear less about is interesting, and a look at new Rock and strong targets for live music and specialist programming are exactly what Radio 1 should we doing as a PSB service.
“In our social action campaigns this year, we take a snapshot of who makes up young UK and what is important to them, providing 100 young people a minute each to share their story on the network in Radio 1’s Minute of Me; assisting young people with their careers; and focusing on disability amongst our listeners.” This worked well for Radio 1 last time, and it should be interesting to hear what direction it takes this year.
And now, the headline grabbing one: Radio 1 will be using a new Across The UK mobile studio to broadcast from the heart of our listener’s towns and cities across the whole year. This seemingly kicks off next week, with Vick and Jordan doing a week of drive live from the city of Newcastle: this should serve as a great way to get a feel for what they’ll do, whether it’ll be the usual show just on location, or if they’ll be doing stunts and interacting with people on the location (wouldn’t make much sense to not take advantage of the circumstances to make content specific to the location).
This, to my mind, serves two purposes. It gives Radio 1 a boost in terms of being seen out and about, not London-centric, and having a higher profile nationally as a result, all while creating engaging and entertaining content whenever the DJs are on location somewhere. It also helps with Radio 1’s need to broadcast more daytime hours outside London, and maybe it works a as a halfway house until they can move a weekday show full time to Salford. And, of course, it makes use of the vehicle that was used for Rowing Home and utilises those resources in a creative way.
I think this is a great idea: and it does have echoes of the old Roadshow about it. The obvious reason something about the Roadshow wouldn’t be right today is that now people aren’t going to show up on mass just to see Radio 1 DJs: they have a lower profile today, compared to say, the 1980s, when they were megastars with profiles as big as the pop stars they played on the radio. Big Weekend replaced the Roadshow because it had the thing of going to your hometown but the pull of massive artists. However, a lower key initiative along these lines, broadcasting from different places across the country, presumably at festivals but also in the mould of what Vick and Jordan are doing next week just taking a weekday show on the road for the week to a town or city somewhere out there in the UK, is a great idea for Radio 1’s profile and for its audience. Let’s watch this space and see what they do with the idea!
Tomorrow: Radio 1’s age cycle
