BBC Radio 1 is one of the most popular stations in all of the U.K. It recently ran a kind of publicity stunt/contest in which one of its DJs was charged with finding the rest of the staff, who had supposedly been "spirited" away to secret locations. As the stunt reached its finale on Friday, the national station took it to an extreme you rarely see: it built up to a frenzied countdown as time ran out, then actually signed off for five minutes straight, while confused listeners went crazy trying to figure out what happened. 

Using such a long stretch of dead air is a pretty unusual tactic for any radio network, especially on purpose. But after that long silence, it suddenly reappeared and informed listeners that all the "missing" jocks had been found and all was well. And then programming resumed as normal. 

But while it was all a fake, what happened while it was going on was quite remarkable. Judging by the reaction of social media, millions of listeners stayed tuned through all that dead air and never changed the channel to anything else, waiting to find out what happened.

I'm not sure I've ever heard of a stunt like this, but what a unique way to get attention. If you can keep people tuned in to nothing for that length of time, you've really made an impression!

BBC Radio 1 listeners confused as station suddenly goes off-air