I would like to express my dismay to the proposed closure of BBC 6 Music.

As an avid listener to many of the shows broadcast throughout the week, there are so multiple reasons for the station to remain on air permanently.

For instance, It provides a platform for new music by talented British artists be showcased. It has presenters of such intelligence, humour and unadulterated passion for music that are seldom found on the sister stations on the BBC network. Gideon Coe., Marc Riley, Lauren Laverne, Steve Lamcaq, Chris Hawkins, Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey and the comedy alternative of Adam and Joe make this station a treasure. These presenters are also the legacy of the late, great, John Peel for whom the BBC are proud to have a long association. The BBC also gained an extensive archive of artists who subsequently found substantial fame, due to presenters with such foresight. I fail to see where the treasured BBC archives be added to in future if this station does not exist.

I note that the listening figures for 6 Music have doubled in the last year. I believe this is due to the BBC’s proposal has opening many peoples eyes to the alternative available on their DAB or via the internet. The station has a strong following for what has been a baffling under-promotion of this valuable radio station to British and new music.

This station is a fantastic alternative to the homogenised ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ and hourly playlist output of commercial stations and, dare I say it, some other mainstream stations on the BBC (I have never listened to Radio 1 since I bought a DAB and discovered 6). It would be a ludicrous decision to remove it from the digital airwaves.

So, quite the opposite, BBC 6 Music should be spread to a wider audience as no other station plays a mixture of new, current music whilst providing a musical education to the British public to little known or classic alternative music. Promote the station and there will be even more listeners. The BBC is proud to be the cultural alternative to commercial radio stations and in closing this station British alternative music culture will be crippled.

Please allow 6 Music to continue bringing pleasure to the ever growing numbers of listeners.

Your sincerely

Phillip Brown
Birmingham

I am a great admirer of the BBC and the quality of the vast majority of its output. I would willingly pay double the current licence fee, such is my use of local & national radio in particular. However I wish to add my voice to the many thousands who have no doubt contacted you over the proposed closure of BBC 6 Music & the Asian Network.

It will be nothing short of cultural vandalism if the plans of Tim Davie, Mark Thompson et al are allowed to proceed, I need not go on about how wrong they are to think the commercial sector can provide the same level of service, many others will have done it in this consultation, and their’s plenty of websites out there with statistics proving our point.

Please BBC Trust, reject the proposal for these 2 stations to close, and let me continue to enjoy my digital radio for the very reason I bought one, great alternative broadcasting from the BBC.

Thank you for reading this,

Yours sincerely,
Stephen Atkinson
Liverpool

I think this totally disregards and underestimates the demographic that 6Music appeals to and flies in the face of one of your five priority mission statements; “Inspiring knowledge, music and culture”. Really? Removing 6 music is totally contradicting that, especially if Radio 1 is still allowed to prosper, a station with, in my opinion, a completely dumbed down and repetitive
X Factor playlist and zoo-style presenting. This sounds like commercial interests here are
over-riding quality.

I am sure I don’t need to point out the richness of the different type of music that BBC 6 is all about, showcasing new bands that would not otherwise be heard but also airing a wide spectrum of back catalogue tracks from artists going back five decades, thus successfully managing to attract music lovers of all ages. I am 44 and I also have a teenage niece who regularly listens.

I don’t see how encorouging commercial radio stations to fill the gap would work, unless the
BBC are willing to sign their music archive over to whoever that may be. The whole appeal of this station is the huge eclectic playlist that no commercial radio station would really have access to.
6 Music is unique and cannot just be recreated elsewhere. Would another station get on board the calibre of 6 music presenters, including established musicians such as Jarvis Cocker, Guy Garvey and Bob Dylan?

And how would it work transferring bits of it to other BBC stations? Radio 1 only appeals to mainstream chart listeners and BBC 2 is too “middle of the road”, e.g Steve Wrights Sunday
Love Songs being about as far away from BBC 6 as its possible to be.

Surely all 6 Music needs is more exposure and marketing, maybe switching it to FM. For example a lot of people can’t afford to have digital radios installed in their cars so that’s a lot of listening time lost.

If this goes ahead then the BBC is snubbing a large population of intelligent, cultured music listeners by ignoring their views and appealing to the masses. A lot of people feel that cuts would be more justified if the BBC were to look at the salaries of the likes of Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross and highly paid executives.

I feel that the media in general over the last 10 years has become vacuous, dumbed down and sterile with reality TV and talent shows. BBC 6 Music promotes individuality and gives welcome relief from that culture.

I really hope that the BBC will reconsider this decision and listens to its licence fee payers.

Christine Sinclair

Cheers
Rachel

I was very disappointed to hear that there is consideration of closing Radio 6 Music. I would be most grateful if you could inform me of an alternative radio station that is in any way comparable to the excellent quality of Radio 6? I have tried all the mainstream stations and none have anything like the quality of broadcast of Radio 6. Please help.

Best regards,

Brian Barnbrook

Strategy Review Consultation
BBC Trust
180 Gt Portland Street
LONDON
W1V 5QZ

Dear Sirs

There are some things that are too important for an email, and this is one of them.

6Music’s proposed closure as part of the strategic review is so misjudged it is hard to know where to start a critique, but the following are merely a few of the reasons:

• It is a unique radio station of the type only the BBC can provide. The BBC’s own media correspondent Torin Douglas completely misses the point when he says “the closure of 6Music will keep the commercial sector happy”. Stuff and nonsense! The commercial sector is not in the slightest interested in 6Music’s audience, and even if it is, it hasn’t a clue how to provide for it. If the station closes, there will be no alternative provided by commercial radio. It will simply vanish.

• Both Thompsons have suggested “some” of the new music 6Music plays could be introduced to Radio 2. This shows their complete ignorance of the genre, if it can be pidgeonholed as such. The reason 6 has an audience is because it does NOT play mainstream music. It’s audience does not want to listen to mainstream music, as Radio 2’s does not want to listen to leftfield music. Combine the two and you will have a station with no audience, not two.

• 6Music provides an outlet for British artists that they would not find elsewhere. Alternative pop/rock music is one of few areas in which the UK excels and exports around the globe. To close 6Music would close the route to success for many such artists and as such would be detrimental to the UK economy. I would have thought the national, publicly funded broadcaster would have realised this and taken it into consideration.

• 6Music’s audience could be grown if only awareness of it was improved. it has received a pitiful amount of promotion from within the Corporation. There are hundreds of sold out festivals, and thousands of gigs across the land at which a little advertising would pay dividends.

• I succumbed to the BBC’s heavy advertising for DAB receivers at Christmas time, and purchased one purely to be able to listen to 6Music without being adjacent to a computer. I believe, having promoted digital radios so heavily, it has a duty to maintain the services that comes out of them.

• The proposal is at complete odds with the rationale behind the review, as stated by the Director General himself. He wants the BBC to become more distinctive, quality orientated and to provide services unavailable elsewhere. How can this possibly be squared with the closure of a radio station that fulfils all those criteria? I do not happen to believe the BBC should shrink to allow more space for commercial broadcasting to make profits, but if that is what Mark Thompson has decided he should do with the prospect of a Conservative Government, then he should sell Radio One.

The Trust were correct in their previous report proposing 6 is developed and promoted. To close it would be a scandalous betrayal of the BBC’s remit, and this component of the review must be rejected.

Yours faithfully

Trevor Gordon

Hi there,

Just a short note to say BBC6Music is wonderful and should obviously not be scrapped. Only the BBC could produce such interesting and unusual and beautiful content that the commercial sector wouldn’t ever consider producing. It’s an important part of what makes the BBC unique as a broadcaster, and it would be a dreadful shame to lose it.

Cheers,

Jon

& my response to the BBC’s online survey:

28/03/2010 22:15 Page 1

BBC Strategy Review: Your Response

The BBC’s strategic principles

. Do you think these are the right principles?
It’s not clear to me what is meant by ‘setting new boundaries’, and this principle could be
good or bad depending on the nature of those boundaries, so I can give no opinion on that
principle. Efficiency, access, good value and quality are all obviously desirable. Doing
fewer things better isn’t necessarily desirable. One must compromise in choosing levels of
quality and levels of diversity. It is possible that the current balance is just right, or that
your focus is already too narrow. Personally, I believe that the current balance is excellent.
If anything, I think that services that more closely mirror the output of commercially
available stations should be the first to go if any cuts are needed. The BBC is, after all, a
public service broadcaster, committed to educating and informing as well as entertaining;
and to entertaining the nation (including those with less commercially attractive interests,
such as alternative music!).

. Should the BBC have any other strategic principles?
Yes, it should affirm its commitment to diversity and to providing public service
broadcasting that is not provided by the commercial sector. These are what make the BBC
distinctive and important.

Proposed principle: Putting Quality First

. Which BBC output do you think could be higher quality?
Those aspects of the BBC’s output that I personally enjoy (primarily Doctor Who, and BBC
2′s and Radio 4′s comedy output, BBC 2′s and BBC 4′s factual – especially scientific –
programming, and BBC 6 Music’s output generally, and Collins and Herring particularly)
are brilliant. I wouldn’t know how to improve them, not being an expert in these areas. I
enjoy them all thoroughly. I feel that the BBC could sometimes try harder to extend itself
beyond quasi-commercial output, but it is perhaps unfair of me to comment on BBC 3′s
output, since it is mostly within genres of programming that aren’t to my taste. Their quality
may be great, from the point of view of people who are into that sort of thing. Diversity
must be maintained.

Offering you something special

. Which areas should the BBC make more distinctive from other broadcasters and media?
As I’ve implied on previous pages, BBC 6 Music is a great example of distinctive, special
programming, which must be retained. I guess Radio 1 and BBC 3 seem to offer things
more comparable to commercial sector radio stations.

28/03/2010 22:15 Page 2
The Five Editorial Priorities

. Do these priorities fit with your expectations of BBC TV, radio and online services?
Sounds good, although I find the last of those priorities rather ambiguous, and I don’t think
I can affirm that one without further explication of it. ‘Inspiring’ should imply diversity, and
the introduction of knowledge, music and culture that many might not be familiar with.
Proposed principle: Doing fewer things and doing them better

. We welcome your views on these areas.
I strongly object to the idea of closing Radio 6 Music. Really, of all things, this seems to
me the service you should most clearly keep. It is a testament to the wonderful nature of
our BBC that it has such a thing as 6 Music. The above proposals seem like they’ll turn the
BBC into a clone of a commercial sector broadcaster. If you want the BBC to survive at all,
it’s crucial that it be distinctive. If politicians can argue that the BBC is just a tax-funded
service that’s no different from the non-tax-funded services in the commercial sector, you’ll
have no leg to stand on.

Proposed principle: Guaranteeing access to BBC services

. If you have particular views on how you expect BBC services to be available to you, please let
us know.
I have no strong views on this. Personally, I enjoy being able to access BBC content
online, as well as on radio and TV.
The BBC archive

. Please tell us if you have views on this area.
It would be cool to have access to the BBC archives, sure, but I think maintaining and
developing existing programming should be a priority, relative to this. Don’t throw away
any archives, though, please! (c.f. the unfortunate loss of early Doctor Who.)
Proposed principle: Making the licence fee work harder

. If you are concerned about the BBC’s value for money, please tell us why.
Sounds reasonable, but I’m not clear on what else money is spent on, and what the
alternatives would be, so I’m reluctant to endorse this proposal.
Proposed principle: Setting new boundaries for the BBC

. Do you think that the BBC should limit its activities in these areas?
As I’ve already argued, retaining 6 Music is crucial to BBC’s identity as a public service
broadcaster. Cuts focused more on areas that duplicate the commercial sector may be
more sensible, if cuts are needed.

. Should any other areas be on this list?
No Answer

I am writing to respond to the proposed closure of 6Music as part of the Strategic Review recently published by the Trust.

I urge you not to close 6Music as part of your review.

I have been a daily listener to BBC 6Music for the about the past three years and dearly love the station, its excellent DJs and its varied playlist.
I bought a DAB radio specifically to listen to 6Music.

6Music should not be viewed as just another ‘pop’ station. It is significantly different to the much more mainstream Radio1 and Radio2, in that the playlist is made up of music which is played on its own merits and not the marketing push of the major labels.
6Music is refreshingly free of Simon Cowell’s influence!

One of the points I read regarding 6Music and its place in the strategic review labelled it a ‘niche’ service. Within the context of the review, this turns ‘niche’ into a negative, or inconsequential term.
It is a great shame when the station is viewed in a negative context for doing exactly what it was created to do – provide intelligent listeners with intelligent music.
Surely Radio3 would also be similarly branded a ‘niche’ service – but because it is on FM, it can be assessed as having a fairly large number of listeners, as everyone’s radios receive FM.

6Music should have ultimately been put onto FM – it is certainly good enough to justify it.
Instead, it is now threatened with an ill-judged axe, simply due to there being far fewer listeners on digital broadcasts.
That said though, I hope that the amount of feedback you receive, shows your statistics to be inaccurate for how many people regularly listen to the station.

6Music is and always has been a credit to the BBC. No other station comes anywhere close to what 6Music provides.
Surely this great station has earned its place on the permanent roster?

I urge the BBC Trust to find less destructive ways to reduce the BBC budget.

A diverse and varied BBC is surely what we licence payers should expect, not some heavily-pruned and homogenised version of itself.

The variety of services the BBC currently provides, sets you far apart from the commercial stations’ output.

Please maintain all the great things the BBC does and please don’t cut the things that help make it special.

Yours,

Rod Scott-Smith