Wellety wellety well

[glenatron]

The BBC have decided to close down 6 Music, the only music station worth listening to. Not BBC3, the television channel designed to recreate the sensation of having raw sewage forcibly piped down your oesophagus, nor News 24, the television channel that exists purely for people who like watching journalists desperately fumbling around in search of tiny crumbs of news to stretch out over three hours, but 6 Music.

It's not perfect I'll be the first to admit- although a lot better since they moved tiresome George Lamb to the weekends where he doesn't have to irritate me if I'm working from home - but it's so much better than any other music radio station anywhere that there just isn't a point of comparison. They're doing it as a token sacrifice to Murdoch and his mini-me Jeremy Hunt ( our local MP and future culture secretary ) who will be doing everything he can to take a hatchet to the BBC the moment he is in power, but not only is this a ridiculous gesture it's also the wrong station for the job- there is no commercial equivalent to 6 Music. Nothing even close. XFM tries but they only cover a tiny fragment of the country and since they were bought out they've had precious little to offer anyway. If the BBC want to offer something to the commercial sector maybe they should put all their radio stations up for sale and just flog off the ones that people will pay most money for.

Well, anyways, I trust that those of you to whom the BBC owes their living will do your duty for the good of all of us.

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

Sorry you're losing your only good radio station. That always seems to be the way of it isn't it? The good tv shows, the independent radio stations.

*sigh*

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

This one there is hope for - not due to go for a couple of years and there is a chance that enough people will rally around to save the station in the next six months.

[littlesnowy.livejournal.com]

A lot of people are complaining about it on the internet, you've got to hope that they actually pester the BBC/parliament whoever as well.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Hence my link at the bottom of the post there- it's the response form from the BBC's consultation on these matters.

[littlesnowy.livejournal.com]

Coolio - I didn't notice that.

[life-of-tom.livejournal.com]

I complained about it a bit on the internet the other day, and the next day someone from Richard Bacon's show emailed me through Facebook asking me if I wanted to be on their show. In an hour and a half's time from the email.

Obviously, I only got the mail late that evening. That's the problem with complaining on the internet. I really think there's a lot of resistence within the BBC to this move, and not just from Six Music itself, so writing there would be one thing, as would complaining to any BBC show who will listen.

The thing people should mention if they complain is that whilst Radio One has a massive market share in terms of listeners, its content is increasingly duplicated by the commercial radio stations. If the BBC wanted to save money, they could simply cut out some of the token 'Alternative' stuff on there and pump it into Six instead. They could also cut back on the bloated nonsense they have on the books like Chris Moyles' ridiculous contract. His yearly wage would pretty much pay for Six Music alone. If the BBC is looking to fulfil a public service remit, they should not be going for flagship programmes and stations, they should be filling niches. Lots and lots of niches(Except for Doctor Who on BBC One, that can stay a flagship!).

The other, more radical thing they could do would be to axe Radio One. That'd save money, and a lot of Radio One's DJs would find work on the commercial stations if they're any good, and their shows would be the same as they are now- bland, commercial trash. The interesting presenters could be kept by BBC, as part of an expansion to alternative programming and a move towards more of a 'digital library' concept where people can do shows and have them archived online. I'm personally finding that broadcast times are kind of irrelevant in the podcast era.

Unfortunately, that's too bold a move for anyone to actually do.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

They don't even need to axe Radio 1, they could simple sell it to the highest bidder, probably making significant amounts of cash for other programming in the first place.

I completely agree about niches. The BBC should really be filling in the gaps where there is no commercial alternative - Radios 3, 4 and 6 certainly do this, Radio 1 and 2 in the evenings often do but most of their primetime output is the same as everyone else. The other radio stations I don't know about.

Not sure that there is any BBC local station that offers anything commercial local radio doesn't either.

Also, if they want to economise do all the stations have to be running all night? I'm not entirely certain they do...

[stu-the-elder.livejournal.com]

I love this quote from the Beeb; they're doing all of this because they're trying to make "..fewer things better."

Yes. That sounds about right.

[life-of-tom.livejournal.com]

Selling off Radio One would be a good call, actually.

The only other thing that could make good come from this would be if they merged different stations together, axing the bad bits of each and making the good shows into one high-class product. The problem with that would seem to be that the BBC is really hung up on audience figures, which would thus equate 'good; with 'lots of people listen to it.' That's fine if you're a commercial station. It isn't if you're a public service broadcaster with a unique revenue stream coming from the taxpayer, with a mandate to do things that commercial institutions just can't.

[skiesfirepaved.livejournal.com]

BBC3 is the channel that Being Human is on, so I resent that comment. :P

Can't comment on 6 Music as I don't think I've ever listened to it. Shame though. :(

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Yes, but if there wasn't a BBC3 that would have been on BBC2 and they would have cut a few repeats from that channel. There are loads of satellites channels for repeats which is most of what BBC3 does anyways.

[spoon-doom.livejournal.com]

Listening figures are here :

http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php

Shows that of all the BBC's nationwide radio stations it is towards the bottom of the pile in terms of number of listeners. It would be interesting to look at these figures compared to how much they cost to run.

We tend to listen to Nation Radio which covers pretty much from Newport to Camarthen and plays lots of different alternative music, I suspect it's covering a similar niche to 6 music. (I haven't listened to 6 so I may be wrong about this). Looking at the figures I see that it has a greater amount of listening hours proportional to the population covered than 6 music, so I'd say that a lot of the competition is actually coming from commercial stations.

Since 6 music have a bit of a cult following perhaps they should think about finding a way of releasing some compiliation CDs or something, such as those Radio 1 Live Lounge CDs that are so popular. The publications department is allowed to make a profit which can subsidise the rest of the license-fee funded BBC.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

That's partly because it is DAB only. There aren't that many people with DAB radios. If it had been on FM it would be immensely popular.

We don't have any of your new-fangled foreign radio stations so there really isn't anything that comes close in this country.

[spoon-doom.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that - if it's DAB then I can't think of a way they can make any kind of meaningful comparison with other radio stations in order to make this kind of decision.

Seems like it hasn't had a fair chance since it's not been around long and not broadcasted in a way that is accessible to all. It's a bit like if you released a movie straight to Blu-ray and then said it was shit because no-one watched it.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

DAB is like Betamax would have been if, in addition to not being very populer, Betamax had also not been a better technology.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

"populer"? What is wrong with me?

[spoon-doom.livejournal.com]

Don't know, but surely DAB is better, just not quite as geographically widely broadcast/received yet.

We have one, reception is crystal clear, it is great.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

The reception is pretty bad though- when it's good it does work, but it's really easy to lose signal and I'm not sure even now that having DAB in one's car is entirely feasible.

[oifonly.livejournal.com]

I got introduced to a website calle last.fm a while back. You type in the name of an artist, and it 'builds' a radio station around that artist, playing other artists' tracks that it thinks you might like. And you can skip a track if you really don't like it. There's no chat like you get on the radio, but I never liked that anyway. I think you can put a genre in, too and it'll build round that.

Anyhoo. Not a substitute for losing your fave station, but a possible alternative worth looking into.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

Well, places like last.fm are fine but I rather like having a good DJ to listen to...