BBC’s Radio 1 hits a million YouTube subscribers

The BBC has hit the one million subscriber mark for the YouTube channel associated with its youth-targeted radio station, Radio 1.

The BBC Radio 1 YouTube channel hit the milestone this week, after the corporation set an internal target of reaching the figure last March.

The channel, which was originally set up in 2006 but has become a particular focus for Radio 1 in the past year, has notched up almost 217 million video views to date.

In October, the BBC announced that it will launch a Radio 1 video channel on its iPlayer catch-up service, in a bid to build on its YouTube presence and reach an even bigger audience of young people.

BBC Worldwide’s Top Gear YouTube channel hit the three million subscribers mark last August. The auto network is the most successful of the BBC commercial arm’s eight separate YouTube channels.

To celebrate this week’s YouTube success, Radio 1’s head of visualisation Joe Harland, who had had been growing a beard ever since Radio 1 set its million subscriber target last year, shaved it off live on air. “It was like having a Yorkshire terrier strapped to my chin,” he said.