Emmy the Great defends BBC 6music
One of our favourite singer-songwriters Emmy the Great is standing up for the reportedly doomed digital radio station BBC 6 music. Emmy used her twitter and mailing list to point out that the BBC’s reason behind the proposed closure of the station – that only 20% of adults have listened to it – is pretty silly for an alternative music station.
Here’s what Emmy sent out to her mailing list:
“Newspapers are reporting today that the BBC is closing down 6music. According to Shaun Keaveny on his breakfast show, this isn’t set in stone, but it’s a definite possibility.
6music is probably the only reason we sold any records, and it’s certainly the only reason I pay a licence fee DESPITE NOT HAVING A TV. Now I guess I’m paying for the website.
They say in the report that one of the reasons is because 80% of adults have never heard of 6music — a weak excuse for closing down an ALTERNATIVE radio station. Consider also that it costs just over a third of Jonathan Ross’s last reported BBC salary to run it.
There are still ways to show your discontent — If you’re on Twitter chances are you’ve seen the top trend of the day is #saveBBC6music, but people are also leaving comments under the articles that broke the news, or joining groups on Facebook, or sending in emails to the station itself. I’m gratefully accepting any other modes of complaint, and will post them on Myspace as blogs.
It might not do anything, but it’ll be a nice rush of activity before we return to throwing things at the radio every time the dial accidentally lands on a music channel.
Oh, and they’re shutting down the Asian Network too. That’s my plan B gone.
Thanks BBC.
from Emmy”
Emmy- I just couldn’t agree more- this seems like PR suicide for such a small saving (relatively) and I just don’t understand the powers that be at the BBC sometimes.
You know you don’t actually need a tv licence for the radio as far as I know! but I would happily pay my whole fee for BBC 6 and Radio 4- the BBC with the heritage is has in radio should understand more than anywhere else how important radio is- and their mandate is to cater for things the commercial sector does not or cannot. So what do they do- keep BBC 3 and shut down 6 and the Asian network. Have they read their own guidelines?
hey, there is a typo here.
I should have written “it costs just OVER a third of Jonathan Ross’s last reported BBC salary to run it.” not “under”.
Very bad, sorry.
However, Jonathan Ross was just one TV show. 6music is an entire station keeping one million people happy at a fraction of the cost.
They also forget that 6music breaks the bands that go on to be successes on a mainstream level. For example – no Steve Lemacq on 6music, no Florence & the Machine. She makes Radio 1 look pretty cool these days doesn’t she? What are they going to when they have to rely entirely on Xfactor and Jo Whiley to tell them what’s new?
Thanks for the correction – I’ve changed it in the body
I do know about the licence thing, but I didn’t want to cancel it because I love 6music and radio 4 so. much. and sometimes i go on iPlayer. that feels like cheating.
This is an article from Popjustice. I had forgotten about Huey. Arg. He’s the best. Wilfully playing seven minute demos from Myspace on Sunday afternoons…
You’ll be reading a lot today about the imminent demise of the BBC’s alternative music radio station 6Music.
Despite a playlist that doesn’t exactly fit in with the Popjustice view of things and with the exception of Huey from Fun Lovin’ Criminals having his own show 6Music’s one of the few spots on the ‘radio dial’ to guarantee an idiot-free listen – it’s also very much in tune with the musical tastes of some prolific tweeters, the majority of music journalists and other influential early-to-mid-to-late-30s media tastemakey people. So you’ll be hearing a lot of people being upset that their favourite radio station might be taken off air but there’ll probably be slightly less fuss about, for example, BBC Asian Network, which is arguably a better use of the licence fee but is looking at a fate similar to 6Music’s.
You might also not read much about some of the other cuts in music coverage. In The Times’ report today it’s claimed that “the BBC will pledge to leave its commercial rivals to take the lead role in serving teenagers, and will announce the closure of its teen brands, BBC Switch and Blast!”. The Times also says that BBC Worldwide must dispense with its magazines arm, which includes Top Of The Pops magazine, while it’s not looking good for online propositions like the Radio 1 Chart Blog and the daily 5:19 Show, as part of Switch, is unlikely to make it through the cuts.
Interestingly, a sad day for 6Music listeners is also a sad day for Radio 1 listeners because the closure of 6Music will have a huge impact on Radio 1’s playlist. According to The Times, “Andy Parfitt, the [Radio 1] Controller, will be told that the demise of 6 Music will lead Radio 1 to become the corporation’s only major outlet for popular [by popular they mean not classical or opera shit] music. He will be ordered to tie the station more closely to 1Xtra, its digital counterpart, with greater cross-promotion”.
What this seems to suggest is that Radio 1 will have to take on board 6Music music and 1Xtra music, playing more alternative and urban tuneage. We can tell you right now that the number of 6Music listeners likely to switch to Radio 1 due to Greg James playing an extra Ash b-side every fortnight is precisely zero. What will happen, however, is that there will be less room for pop on Radio 1. Switch on a Sunday night is one of the only places on the Radio 1 schedule for a decent pop exclusive. Switch does Girls Aloud first plays and things like that, but Switch is going.
This means you’re looking at daytime for pop coverage, but with more genres to fit in, will Radio 1 be able to find room for a new Mini Viva, or a new Pixie Lott, or a new JLS? Will it even bother, or will it just be left to ‘commercial rivals’ leaving Fearne Cotton to bang on about The Temper Trap at even greater length?
It’s not looking good, readers. It’s not looking good at all. What we seem to be looking at here is the BBC turning its back on pop music.
Read more: http://www.popjustice.com/#ixzz0ge4B6Yag
Emmy I completely agree about licence- I would be very happy to pay for radio alone- and any programme made by David Attenborough. They are driving me mad though- I know quite a few people who don’t support the BBC continuing to exist and they are alienating the supporters they have by cutting what is important to us.
Emmy I am shocked and stunned like everyone I know who loves 6Music. For all of us that listened to John Peel under the bed-covers Its the station we were waiting for. Whats more, as we all grew up and became licence fee payers 6 music is the first thing to get mentioned when we defend the BBC. We love this station – we pay for this station, we want it to continue.
John Peel’s long term producer John Walters once said that public service broadcasting is not giving people what they want, its giving people what they don’t know that they want. That doesn’t mean patronising and pushing what you consider to be culture on folk – Walters was never a punk fan but he saw its worth as a lively, vital and vibrant twist in the story of popular music – its about having someone (Peel), or some station (6music) there to listen to all there is and then bring the best of it to a wider and appreciative audience.
I’ll be on to The BBC Trust as will all my pals. We need a co-ordinated campaign. What’s Ken Garner’s take on this? He was the one that pointed out that it was former BBC top honcho John Birt who ensured that the BBC session archives were transferred from magnetic tape to a digital archive – a cultural legacy that remains unique in the history of not just British but world culture and that has added o much to making 6Music the magnificant station that it is. There is the centre for popular music sudies at Liverpool University too, can they do something with the academic community? If pop music can have a multi-million pound attraction at the O2 in the British Music Experience – we deserve and demand a pubicaly financed radio station that reminds us what was great about the past and keeps on introducing us to the best of the new stuff.
I can’t believe this decision. It stinks. Something is rotten.
You don’t need me to say how great 6music is, Gideon Coe, Marc Riley, Jarvis the rest of em. The finest bunch of presenters and music fans ever assempled as a rosta, providing a great service and great entertainment. Save 6 music – let the BBC Trust know what it means to people. It has never been promoted properly, it has not appeared in newspaper schedules and limiting it to Digital and not broadcasting it in FM clipped its wings. The failure is not that of 6 music but of DAB. 6 music is being sacrificed.