BBC hires 26-year-old entrepreneur to help reach younger audiences

Brandon Relph, who founded first company at 13, joins strategy team in ‘much-needed step’ for the broadcaster

A 26-year-old business prodigy and self-styled gen Z whisperer has been drafted in by the BBC as it battles to reach young audiences increasingly choosing content creators on YouTube and TikTok over traditional broadcasters.

Brandon Relph, who founded his first company aged 13, and has been praised by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, has joined the BBC’s strategy team to help counter the existential threat of falling audiences among young people.

Relph has jokingly described himself as “the go-to guy who knows the youth” and has already had a dizzying career. He made his first £10,000 before the age of 16 with a company based around the Minecraft video game and founded several other tech and marketing companies as a teenager.

The BBC, along with all broadcasters, is facing a huge generational shift in the way young audiences consume media. While 78% of the over-75s still watch live TV on a television in the course of a month, less than half of 16 to 24-year-olds do so , turning instead to content creators on digital platforms such as YouTube.

Matt Brittin, the new director general brought in for his experience in the tech world, has pledged to reshape the BBC as part of the renewal of its royal charter, which is being negotiated with ministers.

Prioritising digital content will be reflected in the major cuts being made across the BBC’s services. The corporation is already trying to adapt, recently announcing a deal to produce bespoke YouTube content .

Relph, who previously claimed the title of the UK’s youngest ever chief executive, has specialised in talking to executives about marketing to young audiences, stating his businesses have been “built on people’s lack of understanding of our generation”.

His exploits have included building a large online audience for live video gameshows, while his company also built a Minecraft version of a Tesla after he and his business partner met Elon Musk at a convention.

Those familiar with his past entrepreneurial efforts said he had encountered resistance within the media industry to embrace online content creators, which he sees as necessary to reach young audiences. That resistance is now melting away.

Another of his projects, touted as a “Netflix for the creator generation”, could not find the venture capital needed. Relph was subsequently hired by the consulting firm Accenture, from where he joined the BBC.

Relph has already started in the BBC’s strategy team, with insiders praising his gen Z focus. Previous colleagues described him as a “special case”, stating he was popular with his teams and willing to politely question senior executives over their strategy despite his young age.

His appointment has been praised by figures pushing the BBC to take a radically different approach to reaching young audiences, but they also said it needed to reflect a wider effort.

“Brandon looks great – he’s somebody who’s had a very successful career, done brilliant work and is obviously very talented,” said Jordan Schwarzenberger, the manager of the Sidemen YouTube collective. “He’s clearly an entrepreneur at heart.

“The BBC’s challenge is a bigger issue than one hire. They need to address that institutional media, distributed traditionally, can’t reach an audience who have simply gone to other places. Young audiences are not watching linear. And the BBC is pretty much built upon its linear broadcasting foundation.”

Relph has previously criticised the iPlayer over its user experience and said that the “BBC won’t have a long term future” without a greater focus on younger people.

Some in the BBC argue its efforts to adapt to young audiences are already well under way. It is the only UK brand in the top five most used media for the 16-34 age group, alongside YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and Netflix. It still reaches 63% of the age group on average, each week. However, BBC figures are acutely aware of the scale of the challenge.

“Brandon’s appointment is a much-needed step,” said Jo Redfern, a former BBC insider and digital media expert. “Anyone tasked with making the BBC indispensable to the under-24s requires a momentum internally and externally because there’s an urgency.

“The BBC has been foundational in British life and envied around the world, but it risks losing that position with younger [groups] and it would be a shame if that were to happen.

“The BBC’s instinct is that of a broadcaster, the very definition of which is one way, at a time when young people demand a participatory relationship with media. Every barrier to that is a reason to go elsewhere and there’s no shortage of places to find media that fulfils their needs.”