Saving 6 Music & Asian Network: Peel would be spinning in his grave
Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010Well it’s official – the ‘not going to happen’ axing of BBC 6music, the only real music station now worth listening to, is going to happen.. Or will it? Let’s see.
What can you do?
Firstly there’s a flashmob protest at 6pm tonight outside Broadcasting House, dunno who’s organising it (the nature of flashmobs says: No-one! It’s beautifully organic) but they want you to print out and bring this flag . I’ll see you there.
Public consultation is until 25th May but act now – you can write to the BBC Trust at srconsultation@bbc.co.uk or trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk (check out their requirements here re: a cover letter or fill in their online survey or write to them at the address here (or all 3?) explaining how the cutting of BBC 6 Music is wrong and a severe loss for music, and a affront to the memory of John Peel and those who fought for new and alternative musics on the BBC.
Strange that the Strategy voices wanting to increase quality, but is doing this be restricting the amount of choice, a monoculture that allows the travesty that is BBC3 to exist (Sorry Andrew Collins, I know it’s part of your money stream but it’s an expensive carbuncle) and funds audience dropping Radio 2 far more, as Nigel Jenkins posted over on the FB group:
Radio 3 (2 million weekly listeners, annual budget £51.1 million, cost per user per hour 6.3p) No real changes detailed.
Radio 1Xtra (0.6 million weekly listeners, budget £9.6 million, cost per user per hour 4.5p) Links with Radio 1 will be “strengthened”.
Radio 6 Music (0.7 million weekly listeners, annual budget £9 m…illion, cost per user per hour 3.4p)
So if that’s true Radio 6 costs LESS than 1Xtra, and much less than Radio 3 (I’m not calling for Radio 3 to be closed, John would kill me…and like Radio 4 that would never happen, those in power listen to them).
Also the whole ‘making it bigger will make it commercial’ is a fallacy – as we know DAB and digital radio is still early-doors; and if ‘we don’t want to compete with commercial radio’ ethos was true then Radio 1, 2 and 4 would be for the chop for the start – especially Radio 1 which KissFM should be especially pissed off about. The idea Mark Thompson is upping the quality is a smoke screen – this is just a numbers game ignoring the Reithian ideals of community provision.
I strongly doubt that the mass produced banal pap the corporation produces will actually be less (it’s a mixed message – we need to concentrate on quality; so let’s axe the quality niche products and focus on the mainstream – eh?) and that Radio 1 or 2 will change at all, or as Mark Thompson alluded to start catering for the 6Music audience (in fact Radio 2 is going to go older, and Radio 1 gets off scot free for some reason, and 1Xtra’s audience won’t want 6Music’s breadth).
Really it is a victory for genre/demographics targetted radio, that you are all in little ticky tacky boxes and should stay in your ghettos – obviously new, unsigned and eclectic music isn’t going to be everyone’s bag, but to kill the station pretty much at birth without ever letting it have a wider (FM, or when DAB covers the whole of the UK) audience or promoting it, is totally short sighted.
There’s also a petition at 38Degrees I’ve signed, and you can follow action on twitter by the #saveBBC6Music or #save6music hash tags or follow love6music.
Facebook group: Save 6Music 88,000 people and counting!
Another petition:
PS. I’d use the email address for the consultation rather than the flakey online form to contact the BBCStrategy Review – just got this lovely error after the first page:
Site Error
An error was encountered while publishing this resource.
ZODB.POSException.ConflictError
Sorry, a site error occurred.Traceback (innermost last):
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 202, in publish_module_standard
* Module Products.LinguaPlone.patches, line 67, in new_publish
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 170, in publish
* Module Products.LinguaPlone.patches, line 67, in new_publish
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 170, in publish
* Module Products.LinguaPlone.patches, line 67, in new_publish
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 170, in publish
* Module Products.LinguaPlone.patches, line 67, in new_publish
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 157, in publish
* Module plone.app.linkintegrity.monkey, line 15, in zpublisher_exception_hook_wrapper
* Module ZPublisher.Publish, line 125, in publish
* Module Zope2.App.startup, line 238, in commit
* Module transaction._manager, line 96, in commit
* Module transaction._transaction, line 395, in commit
* Module transaction._transaction, line 495, in _commitResources
* Module ZODB.Connection, line 510, in commit
* Module ZODB.Connection, line 547, in _commitConflictError: database conflict error (oid 0×10dca9, class Products.QuickConsult.content.Survey.Survey)
Nice. Great public consultation if the form doesn’t work? Of course they don’t want the form to work, they’ve decided their route…interestingly it looks like it might become an election issue, so sorry BBC, this won’t go away. I think it’s going to be hotly political, fast.
Oh and BBC 6 Music just played Public Enemy – Fight the Power, an audience choice. I think they’re in a fighting mood.
Let’s do this, show Auntie how we roll with social media campaigns – we did RATM #1, Trafigura, MP’s expenses…now here’s the biggest one: the BBC.
. She as mentioned in the text SHOULD write a book about him. If she or anyone relating to her is reading this, please give her a prod, because reading that I would buy a copy, and I have a feeling a lot of people would feel the same way…and also because of his mysterious/insane/wonderful/maddening/glorious lifestyle there are a lot of wrong rumours out there – one of which is that he set himself alight with cigarettes when he died (no, coroner said it was electrical wiring, apparently). Would be great to have a book that comes closer to the real Viv (well dunno if that’s possible actually, but closer than the people writing ones who never met him!) and fills in that gap post Bonzos in the mid-late 70s.
