Max Raymond

So I got home last night from London after attending the Future Of News Meetup. I was pretty tired and relaxed and about to play Football Weekly Extra and then I saw Chris Addison go completely beserk on Twitter about 6 Music, the BBC’s ‘alternative’ digital radio station. Why? Because the BBC might be axing it, alongside the BBC Asian Network.

This has, over the course of the last few hours, caused outrage and confusion from past station DJs, music journalists and listeners and fans. Of course, this isn’t the only thing that will change. The website staff will be cut, Switch and Blast! (rivals to Channel 4′s T4 strand) will be axed and a lot of US imports of high quality like The Wire and Mad Men will be axed.

The key thing in all of this was that these decisions are based on a report made by a guy called John Tate. Tate is a former head of the Conservative party’s policy unit and drew up the 2005 party manifesto with David Cameron. The fact that Mark Thompson, the BBC’s director-general, is probably going to have to make these changes shows a case of an organisation being forced to change under a potential new government that cares more about their business interests than serving the needs of the public.

I am terrified and mortified.

I have been very critical of the Tories before on my blog in a couple of other areas, but this takes the biscuit. These changes are not anything to do with serving the public, which the BBC caters for and no one else. It has everything to do with suiting the interests of a number of businesss individuals who want to decrease the power that the BBC has. It wants to run the corporation like a business as opposed to a public service. It’s clear that there are agendas here.

I was going to write a lot of of other things but there’s been two developments this afternoon that add light to what is going on. Firstly, I sent a ‘complaint’ to the BBC (although my complaint was more about 6 Music) because of all of this and they e-mailed back. Their reply, in full:

Thanks for your e-mail regarding BBC 6 Music.

All services are being reviewed at the moment as a part of the BBC wide Strategy Review. The details of the review are currently being considered by the BBC Trust, but at this stage the BBC cannot comment on speculation.

However, we would like to assure you that we’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that’s circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

The audience logs are seen as important documents that can help shape decisions about future programming and content.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.

Regards

BBC Complaints

If you want to complain to the BBC, you can do so here. It’s a good way of letting off steam more than anything.

And then, just now I’ve learned that Absolute Radio might be willing to buy 6 Music should the BBC axe them. Clive Dickens, the station’s chief operating officer, told The Times:

We would buy 6 Music from the BBC, both the brand and the network, and we’d run it more efficiently than they’ve been doing. The passion that we’re seeing from listeners shows there’s nothing wrong with the station, it’s just been overfunded.

It would stand a better chance of succeeding if it was run commercially. It could be a complementary service that could be run alongside our own stations. It wouldn’t generate a lot of cash but it would serve a lot of fans who don’t want to be disenfranchised.

And then the BBC issued a statement saying that the future of the programs and stations under threat hadn’t been decided. Yes, that’s a third development and one more than I previously stated, but it broke whilst I was writing this so bare with me.

In summary though, the BBC is showing itself to be pushovers, and, ultimately, trying to please the people who have power over them first and foremost. Make of that what you will…