BBC Confirms 6Music to be axed
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This morning, Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC, announced to staff that the rumoured cuts to BBC programming are indeed to take place. 6 Music will close some time around the end of 2011, along with the BBC Asian network and other services.
In a move that Thompson asserted was intended to “put quality first” the only BBC station to offer airplay to the best of new exciting, sometimes unsigned music will be consigned to the scrap heap, in what Phil Jupitus has described, quite rightly, as “an act of cultural vandalism”.
According to the BBC website, “The strategy review has now been submitted to the BBC Trust and a public consultation period will take place”, but if all goes according to plan we will lose the best conduit of good music we have.
Emmy The Great was swift to remind her fans that there’s still plenty of time to protest: “Although the proposal to axe the station has been confirmed, to quote Chris Addison on Twitter, it’s not over yet. The decision to axe 6music and the Asian Network still has to be upheld by the BBC trust” Emailing trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk with your objections to the closure of 6 Music is the next step in fighting this ridiculous decision.
Let’s hope the force of public outrage will turn around this decision, which undoubtedly puts quality last.
Words: Helen True
I’m gutted- we all are. I will be writing to the trustees but I am going to take some time to sit down and write a properly researched letter in the hope that it won’t fall on deaf ears. This feels like madness and a very poorly justified decision.
I remember an ad campaign a few years ago stating that the BBC is unique”because the way it is funded” i.e.tax.
You now have mark thompson saying that 6 music should be cancelled because it does not have listeners. 6 music started 8 years ago. BBC3 started 40 years ago. How do the listenning figures compare? I think that 6music is doing pretty well, comparably. I could be cynical and comment on the fact the the man making this decision is in his 60’s and not likely to be a 6Music listener (I guarantee he is not). I am sure he will say he does listen,(as an enjoyer) but he is lying.
As far as i am concerned you (BBC)may as well scrap the license fee(which I once valued) and become a commercial corporation, with adverts.