The full-name jingles were spreading
Scott’s new Radio 1 jingles had started appearing around the station.
The fun came from presenters hearing unexpectedly formal versions of their own names with little or no warning.
Scott was particularly pleased with Scott Robert Mills because he thought it made him sound more important.
Chris was less convinced any amount of middle-name production could disguise the actual programme they were making.
Radio 1 technology broke Bamboleo
Wednesday still meant Bamboleo.
Listeners sent the usual archive requests.
Then the studio technology made the feature much harder than necessary.
Scott gradually lost patience while trying to make the sequence work.
That meltdown became almost as much part of the midweek celebration as the clips themselves.
A feature originally designed to celebrate one instrumental gap could now generate its own technical crisis.
Jax Jones was always willing to play
Jax Jones returned.
Scott and Chris liked booking him because he generally agreed to whatever strange idea they had prepared.
On an earlier visit, the show had persuaded him to film his farts for a week.
That history meant Celebrity Sleuth was comparatively dignified.
Jax would hear stories from supposed fans connected with his music.
Only one would be genuine.
He had to identify the truthful caller.
Jax became the detective
The game relied less on music knowledge than on reading people.
Was the caller giving too much detail?
Did a story sound rehearsed?
Would somebody really connect a major moment in their life with one of Jax’s songs?
Scott enjoyed watching a celebrity become suspicious of the very people telling them how important their music was.
Jax made his choice and discovered how difficult the format could be.
As with Zara Larsson earlier in the summer, the fan stories were designed to sound equally plausible.
Ian declared himself an influencer
The show then met Ian, who had fewer than 200 Instagram followers but had decided he was an influencer.
Scott loved the confidence.
The title Ian-fluencer appeared almost immediately.
The conventional influencer model suggested a person built an audience first and then acquired the label.
Ian was trying the reverse.
Declare yourself an influencer.
See whether the audience arrives.
Radio 1 changed the experiment
The problem was that appearing on national radio instantly altered Ian’s numbers.
Listeners followed him.
By the following day he had moved from roughly 190 followers to around 1,782.
Scott began to suspect Ian had played them perfectly.
The man who said he was an influencer without an audience now genuinely had a much larger audience because Radio 1 had invited him on to discuss not having one.
Scott could hardly complain.
The experiment had worked.
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