Stormzy will make his BBC acting debut as the broadcaster promised a wave of new shows designed to halt the exodus of young viewers to Netflix and YouTube.
The BBC is at risk of losing a generation of younger viewers who have drifted away to online platforms, Ofcom has warned.
In a speech to staff, Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, announced a major shift in licence fee spending to deliver “much more to younger people”.
Stormzy acting debut
He promised more programmes that “reflect their lives and passions” of viewers aged 16-34, which will be available on the iPlayer first, as well as broadcast channels.
Stormzy will play a newspaper editor in a BBC1 adaptation of Noughts & Crosses, Malorie Blackman’s novel set in a world divided by race, where black people (“Crosses”) are the rulers and white people (“Noughts”) are the underclass.
The grime star said his involvement was a “dream come true”.
Drag Race returns
There will also be new series of cult BBC3 hit RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and The Rap Game UK. Currently, less than half of the UK’s 16-34s tune in to BBC1, BBC2 and BBC4 each week.
The BBC3 channel, which moved online in 2016, reaches 8 per cent of its target young viewers each week.
Lord Hall also confirmed that the BBC wants two-third of its staff to be based out of London by 2027. There will be a new tech hub in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, more news journalism produced from the BBC’s Salford base and an expansion in Bristol, with 150 new jobs making natural history programmes.
News ‘for all of UK’
Rejecting claims that the BBC lost public trust during a bruising election campaign, Lord Hall promised that news coverage will evolve to “ensure all of our audiences see that BBC News is really for them.”
Although the BBC has lost star names like Phoebe Waller-Bridge to Amazon Prime’s deeper pockets, Lord Hall said the corporation could still be a global player. “What struck me at the Golden Globes a couple of weeks ago was that every British winner had worked with us at some point in their career. We should feel genuine pride in the part we played,” he said.
