BBC 6 – Who’s To Blame?12 Apr 10
So BBC 6 music is to be axed and cool folk all around the country are temporarily enraged. But is it all down to the evil BBC monster? And who are we to tell the Beeb how to run its business anyway?
Well, we’re the licence payers and the BBC is obliged to provide us with quality and varied programming. In fact the BBC’s Public Service Mandate requires the corporation to “provide properly balanced services consisting of a wide range of subject matters” and crucially, to “serve the tastes and needs of different audiences”.
The wording here is all pretty vague and impossible to quantify. But fear not, good citizens! The BBC Trust (a small collection of investment bankers, solicitors and ex-Beeb cronies) is here to speak for YOU, the people. To look after your interests and ensure the BBC sticks to every flimsily worded sentence in the mandate. So… we can all sleep easy knowing that our tastes, no matter how left field, will be catered for.
But a huge number of people feel let down by this decision. You could be forgiven for thinking that without 6 Music, the BBC fails to provide for those interested in a varied mix of contemporary music from established acts and up and coming artists. My rare forays into Radio 1′s daytime programming have always uncovered the same truth – A tedious cycle of the same dozen or so songs on loop all week. The “listener requests” are quite simply incredulous – “Please could you play Scouting For Girls? I’ve only heard it 400 times this week!”. Do these people really exist, for whom 10 plays of the same song in a day is so inadequate that they actually feel the need to phone the station?
It seems topical to maintain impartiallity so I will say that I’ve always been impressed by Radio 1′s nightime programming, with Gilles Peterson, Rob Da Bank and Huw Stephens all championing a deliciously spicy mix of emerging talent and unsung heroes. But why should these tangy treats be reserved for jetlag sufferers and night shift workers?
People understand that the BBC is not recession-proof and at a time when the word “cut” has never seen so much action in the press, it’s inevitable that even the most swollen, bloated waistlines will be looking to tighten their belts. What’s proving very bothersome for the BBC to justify comes down to a numbers game. 6 Music’s budget is simply so small, relatively, that many feel that savings could be made by a collection of smaller cuts elsewhere. Here’s a few numbers that go a long way towards justifying those feelings:
£9m – The annual budget of BBC 6 Music
£109m – The annual budget of BBC Radio 4
£1.2bn – The annual budget of BBC 1
£6m – Annual salary of Jonathon Ross
£2m – Annual salary of Jeremy Clarkson
£1m – Cost of the 2010 world cup studio
1.98m – Weekly listeners of Radio 3 (with an annual budget of £36.6m)
800,000 – Weekly listeners of 6 Music (with an annual budget of £9m)
So it’s all the Beeb’s fault for failing to understand its audiences needs, right? Wrong! It’s our own stupid faults! That’s right ladies and gentlemen, as a public we’re just too happy to be spoon-fed turd until it starts sweating out of our pores. The major labels and Radio 1 conspire to serve up a limited menu of bland, unpalatable mush that the general public fill their faces with until they puke.
We, as a public, simply haven’t created enough demand for varied, eclectic music and emerging talent. On the whole, nobody cares about a band or artist until Jo bloody Wiley (apparently Britain’s foremost musicologist) has officially confirmed that they’re cool. It’s up to all of us to prove that Britain’s taste in music hasn’t putrefied. E-Petitions and facebook campaigns won’t save 6 Music, but tuning in en masse and leaving the Beeb no viable excuse to axe the station almost certainly will.
You know what to do…
Nice article. Maybe this is where you got your stats from….but if not you might like this http://graphicdata.tumblr.com/post/469891545/breaking-down-the-bbcs-spending-via
Thanks Claire. That link would have been incredibly helpful yesterday morning!