Today is a sad day in the Kaizo office. After months of rumours, our favourite digital radio station, 6Music, is to close as a result of a cost cutting exercise by the BBC. Announcing the closure to staff this morning BBC director general, Mark Thompson, revealed that there will be a 25% reduction in spending on BBC online by 2013; several stations will close, plus teenage services such as Switch and Blast will be cut loose. The Asian Network is also to close.
Many people have reacted with dismay to the closure of 6Music, including celebrities such as Phil Jupitus who has described the potential axing of 6 Music as “an act of cultural vandalism”.
Apparently one of the reasons for the closure (spokesperson on the radio) is that 6Music never attracted a big enough user base. Digital radios though still seem to be fairly few and far between. We don’t have one in the Kaizo office, relying on the good old internet to get our daily fix.
A weekly audience of 620,000 listeners may not match the heady heights of The Today Programme or Chris Moyles, but the BBC seems to be missing the point. The beauty of a digital station is that you can cater for a specific audience. We’ve already witnessed the speed in which the iPlayer has taken off and in the next couple of years the way in which we access digital content will evolve again. Before the BBC knows it, those 620,000 weekly listeners could have doubled due to the station becoming more accessible to a wider audience via mobile devices or set top boxes. And in any case, if the BBC can churn out turgid shows like ‘Cash in the Attic’, I expect my tastes to be catered for as well!
In recent years, the BBC has come under increasing fire to justify its license fee against commercial organisations. I for one have always defended it due to the leadership the BBC has demonstrated in cultural and media innovation. Today, that argument is all that much harder to defend. There are dozens of radio stations out there with chart driven play lists. 6Music provides a strong alternative that has personality. Will we see an improvement in Radio1 away from all of the chart music, with wider appeal that integrates new and alternative music? Unfortunately I fear not. I also don’t believe Radio2 will be able to diversify its range of music and ‘audience’ to fill the big, 6Music-shaped hole that will be left.
The hashtag #save6Music is currently the top trending topic on Twitter and 6Music has been the subject of an online campaign to save it, with the Facebook group attracting over 84,000 supporters. For the moment, this seems to have all been in vain. The one ray of light is that the station will remain open until the end of 2011 and the decision still needs to be upheld by the BBC Trust. Labour MP Tom Watson has also taken up the fight, tabling a motion in the House of Commons for “the Government to encourage the BBC to continue its support for the station for many years to come.”
So the fight isn’t over just yet. Save our 6Music!
(image source: http://www.bustedtees.com/keepthedreamalive)
