When I became the Controller of BBC Sounds last year it was the privilege of overseeing the biggest audio treasure trove in the world that excited me.
With such an array of brilliant content, we know how important it is to keep improving curation on Sounds so that it’s even easier for users to discover our great audio whether it’s radio programmes, podcasts or music. What we’ve already done has made a real difference for listeners and I’m delighted with the growth we’ve seen on Sounds - we’ve now reached over 3 million weekly users for the first time, up from 1.3 million since June last year.
Yesterday my colleague Lloyd Shepherd, Head of Product for BBC Sounds, blogged about the latest product features including dark mode and making it easier for people to find our popular true crime podcasts. We also now have a curated rail of music mixes based on listening history and we’re going to do more to have our expert curation at the heart of category sections for genres such as sport, drama and comedy so that audiences can easily see content which is particularly relevant or timely.
Our new curation team in Salford is going to bring a greater focus on this and make sure we’re showcasing the best of our audio from across the BBC, so that when people open Sounds it’s full of amazing content that feels relevant to them and what’s happening in the world, as well as encourages them to try new things they might enjoy. I was delighted to recently recruit one of the BBC’s leading curation brains from BBC Children’s - Katie Tully - who will lead the new team and this work from next month.
One area of curation we’re already working on is bringing some of our existing specialist music content to listeners in new streams on Sounds. The recent RAJAR data reminded us once again that whilst live listening is still strong and BBC stations remain really popular, audio habits are changing especially amongst younger people who have grown up with streaming services. So it’s important that when they come to Sounds, they can easily find both their favourite stations - like Radio 1 or 1Xtra - but also can easily listen to their favourite BBC content outside of the traditional, and often multi-genre, linear schedules.
The first of these will be a Radio 1 Dance stream. We have the best dance shows on Radio 1, and we know so many of our younger listeners love them. They’ll remain an important part of the Radio 1 schedule of course, but the team will now also pull them into a dedicated stream. This isn’t about us creating new dance content for Sounds as we aren’t. What we are doing is bringing together the brilliant existing dance programmes we have and making it really easy for current and new listeners to find them by putting the stream in the Sounds dial.
The Radio 1 dance stream will come to Sounds this spring.
At a time when listeners are fortunate to have an unprecedented amount of choice, the BBC is unique in the breadth and variety we can offer. Sounds is the place for everything from the BBC - whether it’s live or on demand radio, new podcasts or music – and we’ll keep finding new ways to make it easier for our listeners to discover stuff that’s relevant to them from our wonderful treasure trove of audio.
