Before we get to YouTube issues, Radio Survivor contributor Ann Alquist has stirred up quite a discussion here with her post titled Why community radio stations don’t need News Directors. Bottom line: there are lots of digital partnership strategies for producing news and public affairs that don’t require your station to invest in some kind of daily news show, Ann contends. We’ve gotten interesting comments on the piece. Ann has more posts lined up in our queue; watch for another commentary next week.
Speaking of digital strategies, BBC Radio 1 has a funny little primer on how to deploy YouTube videos to build and diversfiy your radio audience. Hosted by BBC visual expert Joe Harland and Radio 1 Presenter Greg James, it’s definitely worth a look.
BBC Radio 1 does mostly live music. The accompanying YouTubes, the tutorial explains, either offer some kind of (often comical) response to a performance, or the producers cook something up that the hosts can talk about on the radio later. The former would include Greg James doing a parody of a Miley Cyrus video; the latter would include Hugh Jackman belting out a rather labored version of “Who Am I” from Les Miserables.
Radio 1 does about one of these a week, the video says. The staff keep an eye out for viralness. There is no hard and fast YouTube formula, however. “Look at what is successful,” Joe Harland says. “Be inspired by it. But don’t try solely to replicate it.”
