BBC signs up YouTube stars in bid to ‘modernise’ daytime

The BBC has signed up YouTube stars as part of its efforts to “modernise” daytime.

Famous YouTubers, including LadBaby, the social media personality who scooped last year’s Christmas number one, will take part in a new TV series unveiled by the broadcaster.

The Customer Is Always Right will air on BBC One daytime, which has traditionally been associated with popular TV stalwarts like Bargain Hunt and Homes Under The Hammer.

The 15-part series will feature “popular YouTube personalities” giving their verdicts on products, from a GPS cat tracking device to a scented candle that melts into massage oil, created by entrepreneurs.

The show comes after Dan McGolpin, controller of BBC programming and daytime, told the Press Association that the schedule was being refreshed.

“We are trying to modernise daytime and have a new generation of hits,” he said, after unveiling a Blue Planet spin-off focusing on the seas around Britain.

“We’ve got lots of long-running, popular shows that people love. There’s nothing wrong with that. But we’re trying to bring through a new generation.”

The most famous of the YouTubers are Mark Hoyle, better known as LadBaby, and his wife Roxanne, who have 3.2 million Facebook followers.

The self-proclaimed “dad blogger” rocketed to the top of the charts in December with an ode to sausage rolls based on Starship’s 1980s glam-rock song We Built This City.

It will also feature Antonella The Uncensored Reviewer, a receptionist at a GP surgery who won millions of fans with her reviews of everything from an “over the shoulder boulder holder” to washing up gloves.

Also signed up are lifestyle vlogger Chanel Ambrose and her partner.

Lucy Alexander, best known for Homes Under The Hammer, will present the new series later this month.

Groups of family and friends from across the country will also review the products.

Those who have signed up also include a Welsh fashion student and her grandparents and former lawyer who runs a fashion blog for men over 40.

“They’ll test the entrepreneur’s products and unleash their honest thoughts via video blogs on everything from the design to the practical use to the selling price,” the BBC said.

“The customers will unbox and deliver their honest, funny and sometimes brutal assessments before scoring each product. And because the customer is always right, they will pick the winner.”