Reinventing BBC: Senior staff to be mentored by the young
Staff will be given their own youth mentor who will assist in keeping the senior staff in touch with the young generation and would direct managers on appealing audiences under 30. Photo: Reuters
(Web Desk) – In a move aimed at helping its senior staff understand the younger generation better, the BBC has decided to provide them with young mentors to advise and guide them.
This “reverse mentoring” scheme is going to be launched next month.
According to The Telegraph, the broadcaster hopes that this scheme will assist in reversing the lack of interest of young audiences in BBC’s output. The “reverse mentoring” scheme is going to be applicable to the managers in the sections of radio and education.
Managers will be given their own “mentor” who will assist in keeping the senior staff in touch with the young generation and would direct managers on appealing audiences under 30.
James Purnell, the director of radio and education sections in BBC said that they have to “reinvent” the organisation for the next generation. He hoped that the scheme would be helpful in competing with famous and large technology companies such as Facebook and Amazon.
.jpg)
James Purnell hopes that the new scheme helps to "reinvent" BBC for the next generation. Photo: BBC
“The idea came from a presentation by another group of young BBC employees who pointed out that in our content-making areas (e.g. TV, Radio) the percentage of senior leaders under 30 is particularly low,” he said.
"In 2016/17 it was only 0.1%. Which maybe doesn’t sound unusual until you think that the founders of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple were all 30 or under," James Purnell wrote in a blog post.
The facts and figures tend to show that the age groups of 16 to 34-year-olds might have lost much of their interest from BBC’s content.
The section of Radio 1 is currently having the listeners of an average age of 33, and formerly its target was to appeal the audience of the age group 15 to 29 years.
Moreover BBC 3 known as the broadcaster’s flagship youth service was turned into an online-only platform and has been experiencing a downfall since then.
Earlier this year, BBC was observed as too ‘middle-aged’ and too ‘middle class’ by the youngsters, according to the research of broadcasting regulator Ofcom.
BBC has also decided that in order to increase their social diversity, the qualifications from new applicants CVs will be removed.
