BBC Creates New Senior Role To Build Youth Audiences On YouTube, TikTok And Roblox

The BBC has opened a search for a Head of Multiplatform Commissioning, a newly created senior leadership position tasked with building the broadcaster’s presence on YouTube, TikTok, Roblox and other third-party platforms.

The role will lead a new Multiplatform Hub inside BBC Content Commissioning, focused on audiences aged 13 to 34. The listing says the candidate will work directly with the commissioning teams for Factual, Entertainment, Drama and Comedy, as well as BBC iPlayer and other content areas and social media teams. Responsibilities include overseeing the BBC’s YouTube channel portfolio and strategy, managing commissioning for BBC Three, and providing editorial guidance on distribution and audience growth across broadcast, streaming and social platforms. The hire will also line manage the youth commissioning and services teams.

Dan McGolpin, Director of BBC iPlayer and TV Channels, who confirmed the role on LinkedIn, framed the hire as an acceleration of an existing strategy rather than a new direction. “This acceleration of our strategy is from a position of strength because there is an opportunity to utilise 3rd party services by playing to native audiences and building an ecosystem,” he wrote. “It doesn’t mean lift and shift TV distribution, it means putting more resource into learning how we can best serve our audience in places where they spend a lot of time.”

The listing specifies the successful candidate should be “native to the Creator Economy, with significant accomplishments there” while also understanding the BBC well enough to adapt its content into new formats. The role will collaborate with BBC Children’s, Sport, Radio 1, Sounds, Food and BBC News, in addition to BBC Studios and internal social media teams.

McGolpin cited early results to support the expansion. BBC viewing hours on YouTube are up more than 30% this year among 13-to-25-year-olds, and 16% across the wider audience. He also shared broader first-half 2026 figures for BBC iPlayer: roughly 40 million people watched something on the BBC in an average week, with 20 million watching on iPlayer specifically, based on BARB data using three-minute reach. The BBC averaged over 300 million weekly viewer hours in the period, while iPlayer viewer hours grew 15% year on year, averaging more than 100 million weekly across the first half for the first time. More than 5 million under-35s used iPlayer in an average week, accounting for over 15 million weekly viewer hours, and July was iPlayer’s best month on record for weekly active accounts, both overall and among under-35s.

The position is based flexibly across any UK hub and is open on a permanent, full-time basis.Applicationsclose Monday, September 7, 2026. Candidates interested in the role were directed by McGolpin to contact Clare Davies in BBC Recruitment.

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