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If BBC must betray digital radio, put 6Music on FM
The BBC’s gutless decision to axe 6Music makes a mockery of its aim to ensure quality not quantity
The BBC's move to axe its digital music station 6Music is the most muddle headed decision in its history. A gutless decision - undoubtedly made following political pressure - made even worse by the announcement that it was being done to ensure quality rather than quantity across the whole of the corporation.
What rubbish. The Beeb boldly took the plunge, with full government support, into the world of digital broadcasting. It helped sell millions of DAB radios with its publicity and with the stations to back it up. To withdraw them now is to dupe the British public.
But that's not why I, along with vast numbers of license fee payers, are so distraught by the BBC's dismantling of 6Music (alongside the Asian Network, a 25 per cent cut of its website and other services). The reason we're upset is that 6Music was actually good. Not only that, but it served an audience that is poorly serviced anywhere.
Radio 1 is for chart music and people who enjoy celebrity gossip, Radio 2 (no matter how they toy with it) remains a land of easy listening and the commercial stations are playlist rotating hubs of banality where the only concern is delivering the right demographic for its advertisers.
Out there in commercial radioland there are plenty of competitors and alternatives to Radios 1 and 2 - twiddle through your dials at breakfast time or drive time to hear endless replicants of the zoo radio format with whacky host chatting merrily to the weather-girl and occasionally tossing the listeners Cheryl Cole's latest single.
You won't find that on 6Music, where the presenters have been allowed to follow their own taste (think experimental folk from Tunng, pictured above), be slightly eccentric and bond with their audience through a shared love of music.
I'm part of a generation who grew up listening to night time Radio 1 when it was truly distinctive from the station's output during the day - when The Evening Session and John Peel were a small oasis of taste for those unconvinced by whatever tea boy Stock, Aitken & Waterman had sent up the chimney that week.
6Music is like a 24 hour version of that club. It's so good - from witty breakfast DJ Shaun Keaveney right through to specialist shows like Freak Zone - that I'm beginning to suspect that's what the BBC doesn't like about it: it's showing the rest of the network up.
Rather than remember its public remit, the BBC is thinking like a commercial organisation with this awful decision. Like so many media behemoths it has become obsessed with figures and tables and demographics. It can't handle the fact that it has a station enjoyed by a wide age range with a schedule that avoids pigeon holing.
The argument of cost doesn't stack up when levelled against 6Music either. In fact it's a model of how to flourish on a tight budget. Back-room staff and some resources are shared with Radio 2 and while other areas of the BBC are profligate when ferrying their guests across the length of the country in taxi cabs, when I appeared as a guest on Gideon Coe's 6Music morning show I didn't even get my bus fare back.
6Music has to be allowed to continue. There is just too much good stuff on it for it to be hived into the other BBC stations. And as for the accusations that it is a minority channel (it's not 6's fault that it's on an unpopular platform) why not experiment and give it a trial run on FM where those who can't afford DAB radios or broadband can enjoy it.
After all, isn't great public broadcasting what we actually pay our license fees for? Perhaps director general Mark Thompson should think about the quantity of money he is paid and quality of programming he's axing. ·
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They can't put it on FM because there's no room. Yes, DAB is poor, but only because the powers-that-be decided to go for a quantity-over-quality option,maximising the number of stations but sacrificing audio quality. the BBC are forced to use a very low bit-rate. The only national station operating at a decent quality setting is Classic FM, and the difference in audio quality is immediately obvious. Ironically, you get a better quality on 6 music if you stream it over broadband or listen over freeview.
Wholeheartedly agree - a great article. The entire premise of cutting 6Music (or The Asian Network) based on listenership is flawed as it's not being measured on a level playing field: any digital-only station will have lower figures. You have to make an effort to find and listen to 6Music, and plenty of people do - and love the variety, originality and the passion/knowledge of the presenters.
If the BBC is insisting that they are going to concentrate on 'quality not quantity' they should certainly keep the stations and think about merging other output: BBC 3 & 4 could easily be merged - there is some high quality output on both, but only occasionally, the rest of the time both are stuffed with dross, repeats and repeats-of-repeats. Same with the kids channels - if we're talking about audience figures how many 1-3 year olds are there to watch ceebeebies (or whatever it's called) in comparison with the number of 30 - 50 year olds who are the 'target' of 6Music (though that again is flawed - why insist that one type of music show is only appreciated by people of certain ages, hasn't new media put an end to that misnomer?)
There are many ways the Beeb could make significant cuts without ignoring both its mission statement and large numbers of its audience. How much would be saved by cutting some of these employee discounts for example? https://jobs.bbc.co.uk/fe/tpl_bbc01.asp?newms=info35 Even if each employee is only subsidised by £50 a year this instantly saves £1.5m.
If you don't make some of the low quality 'investigative' shows such as 'Who Makes me Fat' and instead repeat classic BBC shows (who would mind?!) what would be saved then? The list could go on and on.......
This is a very calculating, cynical move by the BBC and is a good example of them throwing their toys out of the pram. They know how popular this station is and the anger this announcement will cause. This is a dig at the establishment for telling them how they should spend their money and daring to cut their licence fee allocation. Instead of announcing massive cuts in spending on services that won't really affect their listeners and viewers directly, things like the BBC website (most of which is completely unnecessary and boggles the mind to think they spend �£115 MILLION a year on it), cuts to expenses and salaries (are their newsreaders really worth �£450k p.a. to read an autocue?), overmanning, cabs to Liverpool for staff etc they have decided to save money by directly cutting services people like and will be directly affected by.
There is incredible arrogance in the attitude that says - YOU will have to go without all the things you like - but WE are keeping all the things we like, and you're going to keep paying for them.
This shows a complete lack of balance - as does this - the BBC says it doesn't take advertising - yet litters its schedule with trailers for its own shows and whenever there is an evening football match etc they will advertise (oops sorry - inform) that it is on their local radio stations but not inform that it is live on Sky or ITV.
The phrase having their cake and eating it is very apt here.
They had to cut the music channels, so they could keep directing budget at their New World Order spin on current affairs, aka "BBC News Onine" - from the British Brainwashing Corporation.
I agree with just about everything you say except that I don't think Radio 2 is quite as easy listening as you indicate. Yes, it's more mainstream than 6 music but one of the things I love about it is that you can hear Frank Sinatra, then Mika, then Westlife, then some act you've never heard of with something new and interesting. You'd have to be very switched on to the entire music of the Western world to have that sort of variety on your MP3 player.
I have connections with the BBC and if you ever doubted it, I can categorically confirm that it's become so politically correct and compliant with guidelines that it hurts.
6Music apparently costs the Beeb around £6 million a year to run. Not very much when seen in the context of a certain J. Ross' fee (for a 3-year contact for a couple of TV & radio shows)...
It would certainly seem a great idea to broadcast the station on FM :
DAB is discredited, of inferior quality & will be shown to be a white elephant in the fullness of time. I agree with the sentiments of the writer wholeheartedly.
i agree with you , the problem is its on dab , the output is good but how many people do you know with a dab radioin there car they should try it on fm or at least give it a trial run on mw to see how many listeners it could attract . as far as i can work out its only competion out there is xfm , if 6 music was more widely available it would pick up a lot more listeners and if it was on mw it would encourage people to up grade to dab , so the bbc would win on both fronts more listeners and a push on dab radio
Although I agree with much of what you say, I would go further. 6 Music has become somewhat schizophrenic, its daytime/weekday output being in sharp contrast with its adventurous and eclectic evening and weekend programming. (Sundays in particular are extraordinary-I suggest that there is absolutely NOTHING on commercial radio like the Freak Zone or Jarvis Cocker's show, without even taking into account Huey Morgan and Guy Garvey's superb offerings.) This is due to the incomprehensible retention of a restrictive playlist, supposedly to give a distinct character to the station. Instead what happens is that smart, potentially adventurous broadcasters like Lauren Laverne and Shaun Keaveny end up producing something more akin to a Radio One clone. My plea to Mark Thompson would be: if you want to ditch the station in a year's time, why not be truly bold and adventurous-ditch the playlist, let your talent have the freedom they and the listeners deserve-what can possibly be lost? I predict at least one outcome would be a raised listenership.
Great article, 6 Music is fantastic, and original. And it's loss would mean the loss of so many good shows and broadcasters - not least among them my beloved Adam and Joe show :(
Protests and campaigns against it's closure are popping up everywhere. lets just hope the BBC are as willing to listen to public opinion when we are saying something is good as they are when people are bitching about some fake moral outrage the jealous rags of the news media have stirred up (no need to mention specifics, I think you know what I'm referring to).
I don't like the direction the BBC seems to be drifting in, Thompsons tenure as DG has seen me for the first time worried about the future of the BBC. He seems to be such a spineless political puppet, the BBC needs someone in the top office who will stand up to the politicians and scumbags like Slimeball Murdoch and his spawn and tell them to keep their stinking faces out of the BBC's business. Let the politicians carry on in their pathetic attempts at running the country, and the BBC continue to do what it should be doing - entertain us.
And as for murdoch, well if I said aloud what I'd like to happen to that scumbag, my comment would never be posted :P
The mission statement of the BBC is:
"To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain."
6 Music meets all these Reithian aims. It is an intelligent and informative music channel that, in much the same way that Radio 3 addresses classical music, entertains and informs re contemporary/popular music. Indeed it is Radios 1 and 2 that are less targeted to these aims. They are largely formulaic in their approaches â?? they may entertain, but do little overall to inform and educate.
6 Music is can be characterised by the late and much lamented John Peel; Radio 2 is Dave Lee Travis or Simon Bates or their latter-day manifestations such as Steve Wright; Radio 1 is Fearne Cotton or Chris Moyles. It is clear which of these alternatives is addressing the BBCâ??s mission statement!
Additionally 6 Musicâ??s and the Asian Networkâ??s listening figures are severely hamstrung by only being accessible via the internet, or DAB: hardly a level playing field vis-Ã -vis the other terrestrial channels.
the BBC must look at this again: BBC, look again.
Completely agree, 6music represents the very best of the bbc and is something only they can produce, not like the easily replaceable radio 1 and 2.
i don't listen to 6 but i wholeheartedly agree with your view and sentiment. there's enough homogenous radio out there, surely these channels can be saved?