Bands From Here

We submitted a few ideas for MIPTV’s Content 360 Innovation competition a while back, in the category of ‘engaging teens locally’ (sponsored by the BBC). The brief was for ideas that “will help encourage teenage audiences to
develop interests in, and to reflect, their local communities across
the UK”.

We’ve just found out that one of the ideas hasn’t been shortlisted (apparently “competition has been very strong”). Rather than consign the pitch to the ideas dustbin, we thought we’d reprint it here.

The idea is titled ‘Bands From Here’, and is described in the now-traditional ‘Needs, Approach, Audience, Benefits’ format.

Description

This project would create an online network
for teenagers focusing on local music, which allows teenagers to
express their interest and passion for local bands, and the music scene
in their area. Teens would be encouraged to review gigs, bands and
venues online, and to reflect upon the make-up of their local scene:
whether it’s active, inward or outward looking, and the ‘type’ of music
that is popular locally. The website would ‘bubble-up’ and promote the
local bands that get a following, and teens who follow successful bands
from early on would be rewarded through community kudos and status
profile – they become the mavens who are identified as talent spotters.

The network could tie-in with local and national BBC
radio stations, through shows that focus on local music and,
nationally, the best from the regions, with contributions from the
teens participating in the website, who may be asked to contribute to
the radio shows and to review bands on air.

Approach

The
proposal would connect teenagers with the music scene in their local
communities. It will engage them with local events and their peer
group, offering the scope for them to expand their networks and to feel
part of a scene. Teenagers will be able to develop their interest in
music locally by learning more about what events are happening, the
types of bands their peers like and the types of venues which are good
to go to (and that allow under-18 audiences). It will offer the
opportunity to make recommendations to their peers, to review bands and
to champion their favourites. This will create an additional network
and resource for interaction with their peer group in their immediate
local community.

Linking in with local radio stations will provide the BBC
with the opportunity to make its local radio stations more relevant to
a teenge audience. In the long term, considerations could be made for
local stations to have teenage hosted shows plugging the latest local
bands and events, and BBC hosted local events such as Battle of the Bands nights.

Needs

Many
teenagers, both young men and women, are intensely passionate about
music, but don’t have access to gigs by nationally-famous bands. So
local bands can be very important, and teens feel pride when their
local bands ‘become big’. Yet the association between bands and their
local roots can often become lost, and the initial champions of bands
can feel they don’t get the credit and reward for their early loyalty.

The
local music scene is often an integral part of the social lives of
teens, however there is no real online space to really pull these
scenes together. Providing one central space will encourage more
teenagers to participate in the scene, and encourage them to engage
with and understand their local environment.

Teens have a
specific need in local music, and will take best to referrals from
their own peer group. For instance, teens need to consider which venues
will allow under 18s to attend, which venues are safe, and of course
have specific music tastes and want to see a specific band set, rather
than seeing the same local bands their parents may choose to see.

Benefits

The project would give the BBC
access to both a vast resource of data about which local bands are
gaining traction, and personal stories from teens who are reporting
back on their local music scene. Both of these can feed into shows on
radio stations, providing local stations with a new group of listeners
to target and engage with.

For the audience, this provides the
scope to really become involved in their local scene, to learn more
about what is going on, to experience writing reviews and taking
recommendations from their peer group, and to participate online and on
air to really expand their involvement in the local community.

Competition

Whilst
many of the more developed local music scenes have dedicated websites,
forums or magazines, there is no network which allows local music to
bubble up to the national level. MySpace is strongly associated with
music, but doesn’t allow browsing by UK region, nor any kind of
discussion or reflection of local music scenes. So MySpace would be a
key resource to link through to, so that teens can find out more about
individual bands, but the BBC website would provide a better means for discovering local bands and the venues and lifestyle of the local scene.

So that was the idea. We’d be really interested to know what you make of it – we thought it had real potential, but perhaps you can spot a flaw in the idea we hadn’t seen.

Incidentally, we’ve decided to publish as many of our project ideas as we can (especially those that don’t get commissioned by the people we pitch them to). Hopefully it’s a good way for people to find out about the kind of work we do, and you never know, perhaps someone out there likes the idea enough to get in contact with us, or even to build upon the idea and call it their own (we’re cool with that too).

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