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Why BBC Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra are opening up to audiences this month for Access All Areas

2013-02-18T16:34:01+00:00

So far this month we've seen the editor of Newsbeat dance like a loon to the Harlem Shake, the controller of Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra being forced to choose which female DJ he'd like to kiss and Sara Cox wrestle her producer to the ground.

This isn't exactly what we envisaged when we proposed that February should be Access All Areas month on Radio 1.

The month had 2 clear objectives:

To be as open and transparent as possible for our young audience
To celebrate and continue the stations digital innovation

We know how much our listeners like to see behind the scenes and get exclusive backstage access, so we are aiming to open up what Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra do across the entire month. The relationship between us and our audience feels close than it ever has. They have access to the inner thoughts of our DJs via Twitter. They can often get to watch, as well as listen to, our regular output. So the challenge for the month is how to bring them even closer.

The centrepiece of our Access All Areas activity has rapidly become Radio 1's first ever intake of interns.

Chosen from close to 900 applicants, the four paid interns have the chance to spend 8 weeks as part of the Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra team. We were keen to recruit the best young creative minds we could find, regardless of their experience or education - so the application process was to submit 2 pieces of content that they had produced - in whatever medium. To find out more about Kae, Alice, Moses and Pete, check out their Tumblr. We've also set them up with bespoke Twitter accounts (have a look at @firstname_intern).

By being on air, on social media and embedded within our production teams the interns should bring an unmoderated account of what really goes on to the wider audience. We have also tasked them to produce their fantasy radio show - in consultation with the Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra listeners. With no constraints on the playlist, the format or the presenters, it will be fascinating to hear what they come up with. It’s from 7 till 9pm on Wednesday, 27 February.

The process hasn't been without its bumps. But if we are going to be brave, innovative and open then I think that is inevitable. We may have slightly irked some artists, but it was worth it to live tweet the entire Radio 1 playlist meeting.

No, we didn't manage to fly a blimp up the atrium of New Broadcasting House, but the month is only half done and there are many surprises still to come.

Radio 1 and Radio 1Xtra are opening up to audiences throughout February as a part of Access All Areas. To find out more about Access All Areas visit the website.

Radio 1's Live Lounge website and the Semantic Web

2013-02-12T14:53:23+00:00

Last week, we re-launched Radio 1's Live Lounge website. It contains an archive of 426 Live Lounge sessions dating back to 2007, showing who played when, where and what they played. Each entry has photographs, and some of the more recent ones have audio and video.

The new site looks great on mobile, and from now on all Live Lounge videos will play on your mobile too.

The Live Lounge is the biggest launch so far on our new events platform, which we lovingly call Eavis (in honour of the man who runs the best festival in the world, Glastonbury's Michael Eavis).

The platform has so far hosted, amongst other things, Hackney Weekend, Radio 1's Teen Awards, and 1Xtra Live. We've been developing the new platform throughout 2012, and it represents a big change to the way we manage our events coverage online. Putting the Live Lounge data into the system is a big milestone, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain why.

In the beginning there were webpages. People like me wrote them in HTML code – not exactly 1s and 0s, but not far off. They were utterly static – no better than pages of a book really, except that you could easily click from one page to another. It might surprise you to know that, as recently as last year, large chunks of the BBC radio websites were still made in exactly the same way. Pretty cumbersome to maintain, and very few opportunities to create useful and interesting journeys between pages. We're trying to phase them out in favour of a more semantic approach.

"The Semantic Web" is a concept where information isn't stored as text in pages, but as data in databases, where every single bit of data has meaning – hence "semantic". Instead of building hundreds of manual web pages, we build one web page as a template, and the content spaces are filled with data from the database when you access the page. The resulting web page might seem very similar to you the user, but the power of having all that data is huge.

Ben Howard in the Live Lounge

At a very basic level, we can start to present the relationship between the various bits of content. For example, on the page for Ben Howard's December 2012 Live Lounge, you can see a box suggesting Similar Acts who have performed at recent BBC events, as well as other Live Lounge appearances by Ben Howard over the last few years (there are two more). We have also connected the Live Lounge database with the BBC Music database, which is powered by the open source MusicBrainz system that gives every single artist in the history of music a unique ID number. That's how come you can see a set of useful Ben Howard’s web links on the side of the page.

In my mind, this is just the beginning. Many of the BBC's major products – such as iPlayer and the /programmes pages – are semantic systems, built in a similar way. It's pretty exciting to think of the possibilities of connecting the Events database to other parts of BBC online, and create interesting, meaningful journeys around BBC content, on all sorts of devices. Watch this space!

Watch the final Chris Moyles Breakfast Show live on Red Button: Friday 14 September

2012-09-13T13:48:51+00:00

Chris Moyles presenting his penultimate Breakfast show on Radio 1

After an eight-and-a-half-year stint as the host of BBC Radio 1's Breakfast Show, Chris bids farewell in his final Breakfast Show on the network. Listen on Radio 1 from 6.30 am or watch on the Red Button.

Available on all Red Button platforms (Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media/Freeview): Friday 14 September, 6.30am-10.00am
In the meantime you can watch clips and listen to the penultimate Chris Moyles Breakfast show.

Round up: A few things from Radio 1

2012-08-21T09:10:11+00:00

The Radio 1 Teen Awards return for 2012 and are looking for nominations aged between 12 and 17 who have "…acted selflessly, inspired others [or] acted with courage and bravery." Nominations close on Monday 3 September.

The Awards will be held on Sunday 7 October 2012 at Wembley Arena and presented by Nick Grimshaw with One Direction, Taylor Swift, Little Mix and many more on stage.

Against All Odds was last night's regular Monday night doc on Radio 1 with presenter Vernon Kay meeting soldiers injured in Afghanistan, Iraq and other conflicts around the world who are now taking part in the coming Paralympics.

The day before in the Observer Miranda Sawyer reviewed the previous week's documentary Bruising Silence about teenage domestic violence, presented by Radio 1 DJ Gemma Cairney:

"…it was the straight-talking testimonies of young people barely into adulthood that were the hardest to hear: teenagers ending up in A&E, being yelled at, controlled, even raped… An important subject tackled sensitively, and soundtracked with lovelorn pop hits such as Rihanna's Only Girl (in the World) that took on a more sinister air in the context of the programme."

Paul Murphy is the editor of the Radio Blog

Some related links:

BBC Media Centre: One Direction to headline BBC Radio 1’s Teen Awards 2012 as nominations for Teen Hero awards open
Musicrooms: One Direction headlining Teen Awards
Newsbeat: Paralympics: Injured ex-Forces personnel go for gold
Digital Spy: Gemma Cairney interview: 'Schoolgirls say Rihanna deserved it'

Shining a spotlight on Hackney - BBC Radio 1's Hackney Weekend 2012

2012-07-09T11:17:32+00:00

Audience at Hackney Weekend 2012

So as the dust settles on the BBC's first major music moment celebrating the Olympics and London Festival 2012 - Radio 1’s Hackney Weekend 2012 - we can now reflect on the success of the two days and feel more than satisfied with the outcome, particularly given the challenges that we faced.

The project had been two years in the planning, with a number of the early ambitions being to reflect positively on Hackney, East London and the young people from the area. Not all young people are bad as is often the perception, in fact quite the contrary.

We wanted to celebrate the fantastic multi-cultural youth talent that seems to seep out of East London, and inspire other young people, perhaps dis-engaged for a number of social and economic reasons. And, of course, to celebrate the arrival of the Olympics.

We also wanted to deliver a major music event, one more ambitious than Radio 1, in its illustrious history, had ever put on; a concert that celebrated youth culture and popular music, both UK- wide and globally.

The plan was a bold one: for 100,000 young people across the two days to attend the concert of a lifetime - for free - and moreover, giving the largest allocation of tickets to the young people of East London, who simply may not be able to afford a show of this calibre.

Following extensive research in the local community - talking to young people across schools, youth centres, and local youth focussed organisations, we set upon a plan. This was to deliver Radio 1's Hackney Weekend, on the 23rd and 24th June on Hackney Marshes, and to open the Radio 1 & 1Xtra Academy (more here and here) for three weeks, in the heart of Hackney, on Mare Street - free and open to any young person in the local community to attend.

With both propositions the challenges were huge. Surely the concert would not be safe, we were told. Isn’t it a given that with gang issues locally and then the very public riot coverage last year, it simply can't work? Would young disenfranchised people behave, or really be interested in learning and starting on a road to planning their futures?

Of course the concert had higher risks than perhaps others of such scale in a different area might - but we the BBC felt, with the right planning we could deliver a safe show, and thus not deprive the majority of good, honest, young people in the area.

Working closely with our partners, Hackney Council and the Metropolitan Police, we set upon a plan. The security planning was like no other for the main event; two security fences (one the Fortress Fence used at Glastonbury), metal detectors, photo tickets for all attendees, and rigorous security checks. Our hope was that the procedure would prevent and dissuade the trouble makers - giving rise to a relaxed celebratory atmosphere.

The Academy had similar security risks.

Due to gang rivalry, how would we get young people from across postcodes on to Mare Street, crossing boundaries many often never pass? How could we reach the unreachable youth - those living locally and disillusioned? From our early research and building of insights, it was clear that the hook was talent - the talent that both Radio 1 & 1Xtra and indeed the BBC come into contact with every day. Let's bring in some role models, people young people look up to - and use those names to draw them in and inspire them.

So, in came a myriad of amazing people to support the project, not just our official ambassadors - Trevor Nelson, Philips Idowu, Leona Lewis and Plan B, but other names across the worlds of music, media, fashion, gaming, and across the BBC.

We wanted to engage as many young people as we could, encouraging schools and youth groups to chaperone young people through the doors, if that protection helped to draw the unreachable in.

Reflecting now, we are delighted to have seen thousands of visits to the Academy over the three weeks it was open, with so many feeding back on what they took away from it all - and many contributing through workshops produced by BBC Learning, to the look and feel of the Hackney Marshes Concert site itself.

You only needed to read the messages of inspiration left by those that attended the academy at the main concert site, to see how inspired they became.

Most of all it pleases me and everyone involved that the BBC shone a positive spotlight on East London, celebrated it's fantastic talent, delivered world class UK and International artists such as Jay-Z, Rihanna, Plan B, Florence & The Machine and Labrinth alongside new local talent, and had the lowest recorded crime in the area for some time, over the weekend of the concert.

It is too early to tell what the legacy of our time in Hackney will be but with so many people having had the time of their lives across the weekend and with so many young people coming through the doors of the Academy we are hopeful that the impact will be long lasting.

Putting Radio 1's Hackney Weekend online

2012-06-23T15:30:11+00:00

Emeli Sande performing at Hackney Weekend

In my last blogpost, I promised to try to update the blog from backstage at Hackney Weekend. Well, it's finally here. And, I keep having to pinch myself a bit, as this event has been so long in the planning. Roughly nine months of my time, and much more for some other people.

I've attached a few photos from the BBC Interactive compound, to show what we're up to. The main thing we're focussed on from here, is live streaming. We have five stages, and a backstage feed, available to watch live on computer and on mobile.

It's not just a case of plugging a wire into a laptop. Before we even encode the streams for the web, we go through a process called Compliance. While we can't always prevent artists from using strong language in their performances, we work hard to warn the audience that it might happen, and to apologise if it does.

On site editing and compliance

The team on the right of this picture are complying, and the team on the left are then editing the performances into packages to publish as on-demand videos, which will be up for 30 days after the event. This video packages are sent back to a team working overnight shifts at Broadcasting House, uploading the videos so they are up as quickly as possible.

In previous years, we've encoded our live streams on site. This year, we're actually beaming the video signals back to BBC Television Centre, and our colleagues in BBC Sport in Salford are encoding them using the live streaming infrastructure that's all poised ready for the Olympics. Like all good boy scouts though, we are prepared for all eventualities, and have our backup laptops here, just in case.

Back up encoding laptops

There's loads of other experimental bits going on alongside our core offer. We have a 'best of' live stream going out on the Radio 1 YouTube channel and on Radio 1's Facebook page. We have a group of young Hackney journalists running a special Tumblr feed from out in the arena on their mobile phones. And Radio 1 TV is providing a backstage view, following the Radio 1 DJs around wherever they go.

I hope you're enjoying the coverage. I better crack on. I'll do another blog post next week, when the dust has settled.

Updating the Radio 1 and 1Xtra homepages

2012-05-30T12:03:36+00:00

Radio 1 homepage

My team updated the Radio 1 and 1Xtra homepages at the end of last week.

This was the first major iteration since the relaunch of Radio 1 and 1Xtra in September 2011 as described in detail here.

The September launch was a hugely significant step for us. Not only were they a technical first for the BBC in many areas but they were also a game changing moment for what radio could be on the internet - allowing the interactive team at Radio 1 to create a completely synchronous online experience which can mirror what is broadcast on the analogue airwaves.

In order to get the original product live on to bbc.co.uk there were ideas for site elements and functions that had to be put aside in order to deliver most of the ambition to our online audience. The September 2011 launch was complemented by a month of gathering user feedback, most of which arrives in the opening week as our regulars get used to the change.

Audience Feedback

In addition to the feedback received via the website we ran in depth analysis with several groups of 18-24 year olds who were fans of either Radio 1, 1Xtra or similar radio stations and knew their way around the main social and entertainment websites such as You Tube, iTunes, Spotify, Facebook, Twitter and so on.

Users loved the page updating in front of them without them having to refresh it, they liked being able to scroll back through the day to see what had been played and they liked the visual impact of the image grid.

That said, there were common questions and criticisms:

Users had trouble identifying artists and guests in the promos in the lower half of the page and didn’t want to spend effort running their mouse over them all to find out.
Each group we spoke with told us they’d like a view that showed all the videos in one place and a separate one for audio items too.
They thought that the grey placeholder graphics we displayed when a track was playing and had no artwork for was an error on the page.
Furthermore, they had some suggestions around the use of the Love button - the main one being 'it would be good if I could see all the things I’ve loved in one place'.

Last week’s update addressed these concerns. The list changes look like this:

• The addition of a new Love History tab on the timeline. Logged in users now have a place where they can see all the tracks, videos and photos they’ve loved going back in time.

• Filters on the lower half. We’ve got five:

Highlights – the radio station priorities have three large promo across the top
Video – the most recent 23 video clips
Audio – the most recent 23 video clips
Most Loved view shows you the favourite items from ALL our users in the last 72 hours and is refreshed continuously.
Recommendations view is populated when you love stuff

• The grey packshot boxes replaced with a range of more colourful graphics

• The text labels in our promos are always on so users can see at a glance what we’ve got

• The Message The Studio function will be back after some back end updates are complete

We’re excited about the new Love History tab. Users can now click the heart icon on a song/track they like and know that it will be saved somewhere they can access anytime.

Favouriting stuff on websites isn’t new. But the combination of the Love button and now playing information is incredibly powerful when used across the volume of new music Radio 1 and 1Xtra play every week.

It provides inspiration for new online searches and onwards journeys to a wealth of music content on bbc.co.uk.

Thanks for reading. Please use the comments box below if you have any feedback for the Interactive team at Radio 1/1Xtra.

Radio 1 and digital participation

2012-05-04T15:15:07+00:00

Tulisa on the Moyles show

At 9.45 this morning Chris Moyles played an old Underworld single and does what he normally does on a Friday. Laurel Waldron, a R1 listener in London, immediately tweeted "Born Slippy has just set me up for the weekend" attaching the hashtag #r1goldenhour to her tweet and perhaps, unwittingly, Laura had just joined thousands of other R1 listeners in participating publicly with Radio 1 visibly illustrated by the next phrase from the mouth of Chris "Let's try and keep this trending worldwide until 10 O' Clock".

The R1 Golden Hour; an hour of tracks picked by Chris and his team has been running as a popular feature for many years where listeners are urged to guess the year and get nostalgic. What's changed recently of course is that the sheer volume of responses now often means that Moyles' listeners are responsible for filling up the popularity charts of new terms on Twitter.

Meanwhile over on R1's Facebook hundreds of other listeners are similarly typing 2000, 1999, 2002 furiously into boxes on their phones as they head into work or college.

Moyles then reads out a few more tweets, Facebook messages on air, asks another question and the conversation online goes on. As I write #r1bromance is trending in the UK thanks to a Scott Mills feature (don't ask).

As my colleague Holly illustrated this afternoon, in her presentation none of this is new (Ed's note: Holly's blogged the presentation she gave at today's Online briefing). R1 has had Facebook / Twitter accounts for over 4 years but there's been a real shift in scale in recent years as the research validates.

This of course poses a number of challenges for a youth focused network.

As Radio 1 presenter and long time Moyles producer Aled Haydn Jones puts it, arguing that it's necessary for the Moyles show to be a catalyst for these interactions, "It's no longer about our audience contacting us, it’s about The Chris Moyles Show, Radio 1 and the BBC being a part of their daily conversation. Using a variety of services, our listeners are able to interact with us throughout the day."

And the listeners of Radio 1 really do dominate these spaces:

10 out of the top 20 most followed radio presenters/producers on Twitter in the UK work for Radio 1 including Fearne (3.2m followers) and Chris Moyles (2.2m) two of the most followed Brits on Twitter in the UK.
Regularly over 1.5m users now regularly see photos, links and clips via the Radio 1/1xtra Facebook pages every week.
Radio 1 Twitter accounts regularly receive over 150K retweets and replies a week.

A small footnote is that SMS is still a dominant way for listeners interact with radio stations . Last month over 3.2 million SMS were received by the BBC's national networks. Radio 1 alone received 2.1m of them. An all time record.

And often for R1 it goes beyond the simple requests and shoutouts. Last week for those knuckling down to GCSEs they hosted a daily revision Q&As on Twitter with teachers providing English and Science facts and tips via, yes, another hashtag again - #r1revision.

I'll blog again in future weeks with more data about how the other networks are using social media and will return to Radio 1/1xtra.

I'm also happy to answer queries in the comments below.

I guessed 1999 by the way after I'd heard the excellent F.E.A.R by Ian Brown. As Aled tweeted "Lots getting it wrong on #R1GoldenHour - come on! It's easy. Even I know it this week!" Yep. It was 2001.

Jem Stone is executive producer, BBC A&Mi

1Xtra Live: The 1Xtra family goes on tour

2011-11-30T12:55:00+00:00

Manchester headliner Wretch 32

1Xtra Live is a stand-out event in the 1Xtra Calendar. A free event for more than 12,000 young music fans, in four cities. It's an opportunity for the station to get out on the road and showcase what 1Xtra is all about. It's also a chance for us to get out and meet our existing audience and enable them to interact with the station they love, this is a great way of bringing the network to the audience.

In the past 1Xtra Live has been single distinctive shows and since 2008 we've taken it to Coventry, Sheffield & London. This year the decision was taken to expand this into a tour, allowing 1Xtra to really highlight the breadth of 1Xtra, showcasing Xtra RnB, Xtra Hip Hop, Xtra Drum and Bass and Xtra Dub Step and bringing unique content both to audience at the live shows and for those listening or watching at home.

The tour kicked off in Manchester and headliner Wretch 32 blew our amazing 1Xtra crowd away. We're moved to Birmingham with dubstep duo, Nero, then to Bristol with Chase and Status and culminating with a finale in London's Brixton Academy with Kelly Rowland and Jessie J.

In addition to the main show, each day Tim Westwood is broadcasting his 4pm-7pm 1xtra show live from a student union in each city. We're also showing our commitment to discovering new UK talent with our "Time to Shine" section at each event. In each city a local act gets 4 minutes on stage on front of the crowd and those listening or watching from home in a potentially career-changing moment.

Obviously doing four shows in four different cities back to back with one team brings its own challenges in terms of production, as each venue has its own capabilities and restrictions. A key consideration in the planning of the tour has been the look and feel of each live show as we wanted some form of continuity to tie the four events together. This has been achieved by working closely with the visualisation team and the marketing team through key lighting, video elements and set pieces.

A huge challenge has been to try to deliver the slick and glossy look that we have developed in previous years at bigger venues, and transfer this into smaller venues so that the event feels like more than just a live music gig. We really want to make it stand out. We've been working really closely with the artists and their creative teams to enhance their performances with pyro effects, dancers and some really exciting collaborations with special guests.

What's been great with this project is the cumulative group approach across the 1Xtra family, in the extensive planning and pulling together of this tour. 1Xtra now reaches just under a million people, and each year we do this event, the awareness of the station just keeps on growing - I really hope we continue that tradition this year. And who knows....maybe through us getting out and meeting more young music fans and introducing them to the station, we'll soon be reaching over a million listeners...

1Xtra Live 2011 will be simulcast on both BBC Radio 1Xtra and BBC Radio 1 as well streamed live online and broadcast live on Red Button.

Rob Spring is executive producer, Live Events BBC Radio 1 & 1Xtra

Details of 1Xtra Live on BBC Red Button: What's on when
Details of 1Xtra Live on the BBC website

New homepages for Radio 1 and 1Xtra

2011-09-28T15:22:00+00:00

The redesigned Radio 1 homepage

There are three posts you might be interested in on the BBC Internet blog covering the recent redesign of the Radio 1 and 1Xtra homepages.

Senior producer Chris Johnson introduces the ideas and principles behind the new design in Building the Radio 1 and 1Xtra Home Pages; senior software engineer Patrick Sinclair goes Under the Hood of the Radio 1 Homepage: the technical low-down and last but not least senior creative director Yasser Rashid tells the design and user experience side of things in Redesigning the Radio 1 and 1Xtra User Experience online.

Paul Murphy is the editor of the Radio blog

Leave your comments about the new homepages on the BBC Internet blog

BBC Radio and 9/11 Ten Years On

2011-09-06T17:20:00+00:00

On the 5 live blog station controller Adrian Van-Klaveren has written a post detailing 5 live's coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11. He recalls where he was at the time (as I'm sure we've all done in the last few days):

At the time I was Head of BBC Newsgathering. I remember catching up with the breakfast news and then setting off for some meetings at the BBC's Washington office. It seemed an entirely unremarkable news day. After 15 minutes walk, I arrived in the office to find an extraordinary amount of activity for that time of the morning. The first plane had struck the Twin Towers.

Within the coverage Peter Allen and Stephen Nolan will be reporting and presenting from the United States, including special programmes from Florida where President Bush heard the news and Victoria Derbyshire will have rare access to Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, presenting her Friday programme from there. You can find more details and leave a comment on the 5 live blog.

On Monday night Radio 1's Mike Davies presented a musical history of 9/11 and its aftermath, featuring interviews, archive and the sounds of the likes of Moby, My Chemical Romance and the Beastie Boys.

Radio 2 marks the anniversary with Faith and 9/11. Journalist and Pause For Thought contributor, Abdul-Rehman Malik guides listeners through a reflective anthology combining personal reflections - past and present - with news archive including an interview given to the BBC by the Archbishop Of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, shortly after the terrorist attacks.

A Guernica for Gotham on Radio 3 investigates how New York artists have responded to the destruction of the Twin Towers. Interviewees include composer Steve Reich and writer Meg Wolitzer.

Radio 4 is currently broadcasting the second half of this year's Reith Lectures under the title Securing Freedom and you can download the first of Eliza Manningham-Buller's lectures, Terror, from the website.

There are details of Radio 4's other coverage on this page 9/11 - Ten Years On including The Saturday Play Washington, 9/11 and The Day before 9/11, a portrait of New York, America and the wider world as it was - the day before.

Gwyneth Williams, the controller of Radio 4, has written about Radio 4's coverage of 9/11 on the blog, where you can find out more and leave a comment.

Paul Murphy is editor of the Radio blog

Sex on the radio

2011-07-28T07:17:43+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/surgery/sexnight/

Editor's note: Aled Haydn Jones produces Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1 and also presents the station's Sunday evening advice programme The Surgery, helping young people to understand and come to terms with everything from exam stress to depression and divorce since 1999. There's a special three-hour edition - on Radio 1 and 1Xtra - this Sunday - PM.

Of all the questions that we receive via phone and texts to The Surgery - the subject that our teen audience ask about the most is undoubtedly sex.

This could be because it's the subject our young teens want to talk about the most, or it could simply be the one subject they feel most embarrassed talking to their friends, teachers or parents about. But what is clear is that, when we offer them the opportunity to get straight-talking advice about any subject, they text in their thousands and call in their hundreds to ask questions about the ins-and-outs (no pun intended!) of sex.

We get all sorts of questions - how to do it, what to do; their fears about getting it wrong and worries about their bodies ("should it look like that"? "should I be thinner/taller?"). And, importantly, they are asking questions about the consequences of sex such as "what's an STI?" "Do I have it?" And "how do I cope with being a parent?"

On The Surgery we often touch on these subjects during the show but we rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to go into a complete A-Z of Sex and the issues around it. We think that ensuring that we address every myth our audience has, discounting every fear and addressing every question that they otherwise do not feel confident to seek answers for is really important. And it's for that reason that BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra are devoting an entire Sunday evening to the subject.

The night kicks off at 7pm, preparing our younger listeners with an hour of songs that are about getting people in the mood and ends with an hour-long documentary examining the use of sex in music at 11pm.

The centrepiece of the evening is a special 3 hour-long Surgery show, live with a young studio audience who will help discuss the topic and provide opinions about some of the subjects that will come up.

We will have some celebrities dropping in to share their thoughts on the matter, as well as sex and relationship experts and the usual Surgery doctors to ensure the advice and support we give is as helpful and informed as possible.

But of course, the main ingredient for the show and the people who will decide what we talk about will be our listeners. Whether they are already sexually active or not, it's their questions we receive through calls and texts that will set the agenda. It will be a interesting night, and many will undoubtedly cringe at the thought of having such an open and frank discussion but for every occasional embarrassed listener there'll be a handful of teenagers who will be that little bit more informed - and at the end of the day whatever your thoughts are on the UK's youth sex rates - having as many of our listeners as informed as possible can only help.

Take a listen, because believe me, you'll be surprised how much you'll learn on the subject.Â I still pick up new insights and I've been hosting The Surgery for 3 years!

Aled Haydn Jones presents The Surgery

Sex Night is on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra on Sunday 31st July, 7pm-12am
Picture by shawdm. Some rights reserved.

Andy Parfitt says goodbye to Radio 1

2011-07-21T08:10:00+00:00

After 13 years I'm setting down the Controllership of BBC Radio 1 (and 1Xtra and The Asian Network and BBC Popular Music). I've clearly believed passionately in really sticking at a strategy for the long-term, based on the understanding that real change only happens with sustained effort over long periods - but 13 years (a record period at the helm in Radio 1's 44 year history) is enough for any one leader!

Having said that, leaving has been a long thought out and tough decision to make but I walk away immensely proud to have held this position and knowing I'm leaving with all three stations in great shape - with their listening figures at record highs.

In Radio 1's case we've come a long long way from staring at a declining reach of 9.5 million - now we've a buoyant 11.5 plus million, with nearly half the UK's 15-24s listening every week - as importantly we've a station set up for success in a mobile/visual web world.

I also leave Radio 1 better "understood' as a BBC service with clear public value aims for the young UK population, and that's not always been the case. I'm most proud of the teams I'm leaving behind, I've taken some of my greatest satisfaction of helping individuals develop and fulfill their potential.

Our stations are full of focused, open minded, optimistic and creative people that are not only a credit to the BBC, but also I hope an inspiration to the BBC of a flexible, multi-skilled modern workforce - I include all our DJs and presenters in this of course - it's one big (appropriately sized - I should say) happy family - "As One" as our marketing strap-line goes.

Looking to the future, I am about to embark on the next chapter of my life with a feeling of great excitement at what lies ahead. Anyone who knows me will tell you that I am fascinated by the way organisations work (or don't work) and delivering practical change for the better. I'm also inspired by the idea of making audiences (or customers) truly the central creative focus of activity - it's much harder than it sounds, but many of the embedded "ways of life" at Radio 1 are based on these principles.

With this in mind, I'm going to work part-time for BBC Radio, focussing on leadership development and I am taking on a part-time advisory role with Comic Relief - working with Chief Executive Kevin Cahill and his very able team of Directors on their next goals - and will be looking to broaden my experience and use my skills in other businesses and organisations outside of the BBC.

But I care passionately for the BBC and its values, and in particular how they are expressed through its awesome set of national radio services, I've been involved with them all in one capacity or another across my long radio career - and over the next years or so I hope to make a final and lasting contribution to their long term health.

If you are reading this as one of the many many people who've served the mighty Radio 1; the sharp and cool 1Xtra and the passionate people at the Asian Network over the years - I'd like to say a heart felt thank you - all audiences need to get something they love and value from the BBC - the young people of the UK are no exception - so thank you again for serving them.

Andy Parfitt is Controller Radio 1, 1Xtra, Popular Music and Asian Network

Read the press release Andy Parfitt leaves Radio 1 after 13 years as Controller

Radio 1's Big Weekend exploration into social 'check ins' gets results

2011-06-16T13:33:00+00:00

Editor's note: A few weeks ago Richard outlined a new mobile project bringing together the social web and live events that the A&Mi team would be testing out at Radio 1's Big Weekend. Here's the promised update on how things went - PM.

'...If you're taking someone who's not your boyfriend or girlfriend and you haven't told them that you have tickets, then don't check in...'
Radio 1 DJ Scott Mills on his show the day before the event.

The concept was to see if the audience at a live broadcast event would want to share their experience of what was happening on the stage in front of them with their social network. To make it even more interesting we'd be doing it in the technically challenging location of an airfield on the outskirts of Carlisle.

The challenge I was set was to find an engaging model for those at the event to link up with those who weren't and in essence to create a conversation around a piece of BBC content, in this case the Radio 1 Big Weekend festival.

As I arrived in Carlisle, my blood pressure rose on finding out that we had no connectivity via 3G at our hotel at all...even when standing on one leg with my phone in the air. Thankfully the coverage on site was much better due to the installation of three mobile operator's 3G boosters.

I then remembered that we had another location quirk to overcome. Temporary 3G boosters do not have any lat/long coordinates associated with them. As we had developed the prototype to detect a user's location firstly via WiFi, then 3G cell triangulation and finally a device's own GPS. I discovered that using 3G placed me over a mile away from my actual location.

As WiFi was not an option due to its limitations of concurrent users, it was down to my device GPS only. From conversations with users later on we realised that many people do not have GPS enabled all of the time due to its high power consumption.

After running some tests on the Friday and Saturday morning I realised that the page load time was a little slow due to the limited connectivity.

On some of the pages the key feature buttons were displaying before the whole page had finished loading which meant that people were pressing the 'check in here' button before all of the background location and sign in checks had been done. This then resulted in an error displaying even though a user had successfully checked in.

One way round this would have been to offer some bespoke content to get the audience to go to the prototype site prior to the event, so that the site could be cached on their phone thus reducing the load time when they got onsite...

The prototype was a 'mash-up' of BBC content feeds from our artist pages and Facebook as the publishing tool which resulted in a more complex technical design than we had originally hoped. The number of background checks to Facebook and the phones location caused some problems with the prototype such as the number of calls to the 'Places' API.

The success of the product early on the Saturday meant that the Facebook system thought we were spamming it. We were innovating with a live service which often has its unexpected challenges. Luckily we had support from Future Platforms and Facebook during the weekend so we did some live hacks, sorry 'updates', to iron out the issues we faced.

After a tense few hours working through some complex issues with the product and Facebook, we were back up and running smoothly. By around 5pm we saw the number of errors reduced and the check ins were on the up.

Thankfully, we had a different audience every day so we could start afresh. This is one reason why we used Radio 1's Big Weekend as a testing ground.

The next challenge was to find out what the audience thought about the product and the check in prototype as a whole. Did they get it? Was the reward of saying "I'm watching Lady Gaga" a good enough reason and could they see the difference in what we were doing to what other location based services did?

A research company carried out some qualitative research on the Sunday and some of the audience used a video diary to feedback what they thought.

Even though we had some initial teething issues, the research from the audience and on site analytics showed that the audience really liked sharing their unique experience with (or bragging to) their friends.

We had large interaction spike from the news story posts from seeing a high number of 'likes' and 'comments' on each of the check ins. This interaction was exactly what we were trying to achieve and it really worked. Interestingly, the stats also showed that more women engaged with the product rather than men - something that needs to be investigated further - does social syndication in this way appeal more to women than men?

The reason for developing this product was that we wanted the audience to share their experience of a live performance rather than just a location they were in. A simple design and simple user journey is a key factor in the success of any mobile product and from the feedback we believe we achieved that objective. It was however difficult to monitor how much of an impact the marketing had with the message that it was a new and exciting feature in comparison to the existing downloadable application.

So the technical challenges were identified, all of the audience surveyed told us that they liked it and the feedback was positive for this type of feature but many people were still very nervous when it comes down to sharing their location.

The BBC roadmap is not yet fixed but I can say that this was a successful experiment which I will be sharing with colleagues and the industry over the next few months. With smartphones overtaking PC purchases globally I am sure we will be seeing more and more location based services being developed, especially towards 2012.

Richard Morland is a Senior Producer for Social Media, Audio & Music Interactive

John Myers' review of the BBC's popular music stations

2011-06-14T08:42:00+00:00

Today we are making public a report which looks at potential synergies and savings within Radio 1, Radio 2, 6 Music and 1Xtra.

Last year, I asked John Myers - CEO of the Radio Academy and one of the most respected figures in the radio industry - to review how our popular music stations are run and how they work together. The key challenge was to identify possible ways of sensibly reducing costs while protecting the quality of our programmes.

The findings of the report will help us with our current planning as we look to save costs. John's extensive experience in commercial radio meant he could take an informed and objective view of our operations.

He spent six weeks in the networks: interviewing, observing and generally digging around. He was given unrestricted access and met people at all levels of the organisation.

We welcome John's broadly positive report and its acknowledgement of the distinctive, high quality services we offer. It is very good to read John's praise of the outstanding people who work at the radio stations.

Importantly, the report recognises that BBC stations have to deliver against detailed service licences which require significant resources and lead to distinct challenges to those producing commercial radio. In John's words, attempting to simply compare the demands on BBC and Commercial Radio is meaningless: "akin to comparing apples and oranges".

However, this doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't learn from external best practice - this is the very reason that I commissioned the review. The report has some valuable insights and recommendations which have been fed into our discussions around Delivering Quality First (DQF) - the BBC name for the work that is underway to develop a plan for the period of the next Licence Fee settlement.

While it is too early to speculate on specific outcomes (which would all require BBC Trust approval), our commitment to principles such as simplifying the organisation, reducing unnecessary compliance processes and finding new ways of working has already been stated in public.

Helpfully, John has identified some clear areas where we can look to do things more efficiently, such as improving co-ordination and reducing unnecessary duplication where appropriate.

Just like any big organisation, there are always ways of doing things better and BBC radio should continue to demonstrate that it is brilliant value for money. I want to achieve this while ensuring that we do not see a dilution in quality or a reduction in clear station leadership which is at the heart of our editorial success. This will mean better value for Licence Fee payers while not threatening the programmes that listeners love.

Tim Davie is Director of Audio & Music

Download John Myers' report as a PDF: john_myers_report_june_2011.pdf
Read The Telegraph story: BBC enlists commercial sector help to shake up radio from 28th November 2010.