New Radio 4 initiative

Radio 4 is pioneering an innovative way of promoting its comedy shows to a new audience via Twitter.

From today, users of the social media site need only make a post containing the hashtag #curious4comedy – and the BBC will send back a sample of a random comedy show.

The initiative will be promoted on TV and radio, and run for a trial three-week period. If successful, it might later be extended to other genres of programmes.

Nigel Smith, digital editor for Radio 4 said: 'The breadth and depth of Radio 4’s output is one of the things that so delights our audience. The sheer variety of programming means that the schedule is packed with surprises. The flip side of having so many great programmes is that many people who’d be interested in them might not even they know they exist.

'The aim of #curious4comedy is to highlight the cream of Radio 4’s award-winning comedy output to audiences who might not know about the breadth of our content and the range of comedy that we broadcast.'

Shows included in the trial include That Mitchell and Webb Sound, Tom Wrigglesworth’s Hang Ups and The News Quiz. New clips will be added each week.

The drive is a result of a Digital Challenge Day, when Radio 4 invited agencies to come up with new ideas to get listeners engaged with the station. The winner was an agency called Poke, which came up with the idea.

Smith added: 'This is about us reaching out to new audiences, to those people who love comedy and the talent on Radio 4 but might not know about Radio 4 being such a comedy powerhouse.'

Clips are sent back to Twitter users in their @Connect tab; and the BBC says it won’t store any personal information, but will use anonymous data to ensure listeners are not sent repeated clips.

Here's Miles Jupp explaining it:

Published: 15 Nov 2013