BBC 6 Music

An email to the BBC Trust - srconsultation@bbc.co.uk - regarding the proposal in the BBC Strategy Review March 2010 that 6 Music should be axed in 2011:


Dear Sir/Madam,

I feel compelled to write to you regarding the frankly devastating news that the BBC is considering closing their digital radio station 6 Music.

When the BBC launched the station in 2002, I'm sure I wasn't alone in thinking it was too good to be true. There I was dutifully paying my licence fee for the odd Attenborough series and, well, not much else, to be quite honest. News? Channel 4. Quality drama? HBO. Comedy? Behave - Two Pints is an absolute travesty, beloved only of unapologetic knuckleheads.

Then along comes a more eclectic, less chart-oriented XFM with no adverts and bingo bango, the BBC's finally putting out something that genuinely appeals to me. Not only sporadically, either, but pretty much all day long. 6 Music has continually attracted talented, erudite and witty broadcasters, including respected, cutting-edge comedians and musicians, to front their shows. The line-up of presenters past and present [with, granted, the notable exception of George Lamb] reads like some kind of wish fulfilment fantasy, and Adam and Joe's Saturday show is honest-to-God gold dust.

The question the BBC should be asking itself is whether it can afford to cut 700,000 fanatical 6 Music listeners loose in order to save 10 times that fathead Moyles's pie allowance, which fantastic sum seems inversely commensurate with the recipient's lack of talent. It's not going to be a case of "Oh well, it was good while it lasted - now let's see what else the BBC's got to offer," because the goodwill of 6 Music's audience will have been squandered and they'll seek similar content elsewhere. The Director-General's Strategy Review would seem to suggest that 6 Music's fan base would naturally gravitate - or else could be gently shepherded - towards Radios 1 and 2, but Radio 1's daytime output is far too moronic for the 6 Music listenership, and Radio 2 seems geared [with apologies to my parents] towards middle-aged nostalgia addicts. Music is one of those things that people are illogically passionate about, and to assume that we'll make do with a vague approximation of our preferences just won't cut it in this digital age of unprecedented choice.

I can't help but feel, too, that this is a disappointing, token gesture of appeasement on the part of the BBC to the well-documented pressure the Tories have recently been placing on the corporation. Government agencies and publicly-funded bodies are tripping over themselves to second-guess the uptight fun-haters everyone seems to think will be in government in but a few short months. It would appear naïve in the extreme, however, for anyone to believe that the proposed cuts will sate those who already have the scent of blood in their nostrils, and that this wouldn't in fact herald the start of an almighty feeding frenzy, to be accompanied by increasingly self-confident cries for further scapegoats.

The BBC offers a broad and unique selection of programmes, the like of which simply isn't on offer amongst its commercial competitors. Streamlining those diverse - and by their very nature often niche - services can surely only result in a general lack of distinction from all the other bland, lowest-common-denominator fare on the market.

Yours faithfully,

Happy Gin Face


P.S. Charlie Brooker for Director-General! Whoop whoop!