Why 6 Music should be saved (And not just because I like it)

I have to admit I love 6 Music. I listen to it all the time, and if they do get rid of it, there won’t be much point me even owning a radio any more, let alone a digital one. But that’s not the only reason it should be saved.


I would take issue with BBC Director General Mark Thompson’s crude characterisation of the station as a “pop music” station. In an interview with the BBC News Channel (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8545538.stm), Mr Thompson said: “We have, in Radio 1 and Radio 2, two popular music, UK-wide radio stations and we should concentrate on doing everything we need to do, in terms of bringing popular music to audiences in this county with those two stations.” Now, anyone with even a cursory familiarity with those three radio stations will know that the content of each of them is completely different to the others. And even if you don’t, there is still the fact that, as Private Eye points out (issue 1258, pg 10), Radio 1 is aimed at 15-29-year-olds, while Radio 2’s audience has an average age of 50, and the BBC Trust has recommended that it do more to target the over-65s. That leaves a lot of people falling into the large gulf between the two stations, even without taking into account those such as myself who feel we have outgrown Radio 1 before we have outgrown its target age bracket.

6 Music features a remarkably rich and eclectic range of music, and presenters like Steve Lamacq and Lauren Laverne really know their stuff. And, yes, it’s pretty geeky. If I was being cynical I could say its ideal listener was the main character from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. But it you don’t really have to be that well-informed to appreciate being introduced to great music that would never get played on any other station. And it also provides opportunities for new bands to get heard and perhaps break through into the mainstream (as was the case with the now-ubiquitous Florence and the Machine).

I suppose, when it comes down to it, its not just about 6 Music – I take issue with the Strategy Review’s whole message about ‘doing fewer things better.’ What this means is basically neglecting the niche in favour of the mainstream, and this seems to me to go against one of the main things that the BBC stands for. Surely the whole point of the BBC as a public body is that it can do things that a commercial organisation never could – like serving smaller demographics and taking risks with programming? The ‘fewer things’ it chooses to concentrate on will necessarily have to be crowd-pleasing, populist things, similar to what commercial channels and stations provide. If the BBC has no place for eccentrics, then who else will?
Make your feelings known: https://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/departments/bbc/bbc-strategy-review/consultation/consult_view

Or email: srconsultation@bbc.co.uk