The BBC has officially announced the upcoming release of Playlister — a new product that allows audiences listening to music on the BBC to save, favourite and add tracks to their own personalised playlist. The playlist can be viewed and stored online before being exported to one of the BBC’s digital music partners, which include Spotify, YouTube and Deezer.
Well known BBC DJs will also be using Playlister, allowing audiences to follow their favourite presenters and find new and interesting music recommended by them, even while they’re off air. The BBC claims it “showcases more music than any other broadcaster” and hopes that Playlister will make it easier for listeners to store and keep track of their music.
Playlister boasts that it is the “first of its kind”. Considered in conjunction with the recent announcement of more interactive features for iPlayer, it seems the BBC is starting to put a greater emphasis on innovation and interactivity with its online products. Significantly, Playlister is an international product which, coupled with its overlap with third-party music providers and emphasis on “sharing”, may help increase the corporation’s profile abroad and its overall revenue.
Chris Book, Founder and CEO of Bardowl, sees this as the beginnings of “… music social recommendation and discovery” which is starting to “evolve to a new level”, predicting that consumers are likely to experience “other entertainment genres adapting to follow suit, from movies to published books and audiobooks”.
Key features include: the ability to collate tracks from across the BBC via a simple sign-in process; the chance to discover recommended tracks from favourite BBC DJs and presenters or popular programmes; and the option to export a personalised playlist to a chosen digital music service which can be replayed on demand through various different devices.
