Saving 6Music is Actually Quite Important
I know there’s been a lot of chatter about this already, but I feel really strongly that we need to try and stop the closure of BBC 6Music if we can. If you want to help, please sign both of the following petitions:
And if you’re a Facebooker, please join this group.
You can also fill in the following consultation form if you can make the time, which would also be a big help.
Equally importantly, please email srconsultation@bbc.co.uk and tell them why they should keep 6Music.
And finally, make sure you listen to the bloody station. I can’t stress this enough. It’s not enough to support something by moaning, and it’s not enough just to like the idea of something existing, if you want to support something you have to actually use their product, whatever that might be. Otherwise we become these people.
So, why, in all honesty, should we do all this? What’s the big deal, and are we just being snotty about losing 6Music because it generally played ‘our kind of music’ or is there some wider purpose beyond specific taste which the station served which should be preserved?
The answer, from me, is yes on both counts. Firstly and most obviously, in terms of supporting the actual making of new music, across all genres, 6Music was without parallel. By giving so much opportunity to small and emerging bands, and by using specialist DJs who could put those bands into a broader historical context, the station fulfilled a unique function in actually supporting the development of music in the UK.
In saying this am I being insulting to the BBC Introducing network, with Vic Galloway, Bethan Elfyn and Huw Stephens? No, I don’t think so. As good a job as they do, and as grateful as I am to the consistent support and friendship Vic has shown Song, by Toad, they simply don’t have enough time to represent the entire BBC contribution to new music. With so little time to play stuff, the volume of submissions to time allowed ratio means that the music cannot all be reasonably listened to or played and the whole thing becomes a crap-shoot, which becomes a real barrier to good things rising to the top. 6Music has enough airtime that good stuff is likely to be picked up – it’s still far from perfect, but it’s alright.
The other point is that in ditching 6Music the Beeb would basically be abdicating any role in cultural and artistic development in the field of popular music. They may think that fits with their charter, but I do not. Basically, Radio One is what is already happening, and Radio Two is what was never happening. These stations are entirely dominated by the finished article, but who is going to finish that article for them? In the absence of 6Music there will be the shiny, professional mainstream at one end, and tiny DIY enterprises like this one at the other, and absolutely not a single bloody thing inbetween.
How the hell are you supposed to progress, to step up, to actually make that massive leap without the developmental step of 6Music, where you can start out with a couple of airplays on one show, maybe get a session on another, and hope to eventually make the step up to a Maida Vale Session and perhaps eventually some Radio1 airplay. Take away 6Music and you have to go from the Song, by Toad podcast to Radio1 in a single leap, which is not only a ludicrous expectation, but also makes the process increasingly arbitrary, because bands develop at different rates. Not everyone can teach themselves all the stuff required to do this without intermediary steps, and even fewer have the stamina to keep going all that way without the encouragement they provide.
So from a label or band’s perspective, this is basically a disaster. This was the closest we had to a reasonably understandable route to establishing ourselves, and in its absence this is going to become extremely challenging. If I wanted to be a cynical bugger about it I would look at the Toad Sessions and look at the podcasts and watch the BBC and everyone else (XFM, anyone?) abandoning this middle ground for the higher echleons of pimping finished products and I would be rubbing my hands with glee at just how much audience they are surrendering and how much artistic ground they have abandoned, ground which we can now make a concerted effort to occupy.
Ultimately, though, that just isn’t how I feel. Getting the likes of Gideon Coe, Marc Riley and Stuart Maconie off the air is a massive loss to anyone who cares about music and, more specific to the BBC, to anyone who cares about supporting cultural development in the UK. The BBC are paid a lot in the form of tax, and they have a public service responsibility, and as far as I am concerned cutting 6Music will represent a very significant failure to fulfil that role.
Thoroughly agree Matthew.
It’s difficult to underestimate the positive effect that the likes of Marc Riley have in their support of great new Scottish music, both on the band’s own trajectory, and in brightening up the lives of music fans who have always been marginalised by every other station out there.
I agree that listening to the station now could be very important and personally I’m treasuring every moment of it from now until the end of next year just in case.
I’m utterly bemused about how, in making these proposals, Mark Thomson has galactically missed the point of what the corporation he helms is actually for.
How did he get that job? Were they just hiring? Has he worked his way up from pushing a broom round the storeroom?
It’s bewildering, it really is.
Pretty much agree with all that.
I may not be the avid radio listener I once was as the iPod/IPhone still doesn’t do radio, but when I do listen it is pretty much only Radio 4 and 6Music. They in my eyes are everything that is good with the BBC – intelligent reporting and debate and cultural development. That’s it. It’s not a massive remit, but it is where the BBC stands head and shoulders above its commercial rivals on TV or radio.
I hadn’t spotted the feedback form – so that done now too.
Did any of you see Paxman interview Mark Thomson? It was good to see him squirm and have almost no answers for the lack of relevance of BBC3 or even BBC4, whilst at the same time he tries to claim they are worth the money and 6Music isn’t.
Something I’ve never understood about the Asian Network though is that if there is a big enough audience to warrant its own station then why on earth aren’t there asian music/culture shows on Radio 1/2/4 rather than separating them. Odd.
Toad – I want you to book a dinner with the Director General and for you to say “SMELL MY CHEESE YOU MOTHER!” before scarpering off to the ToadMobile.
I agree with everything you have said and have done all the above to help too. Amazing if it works. I now have digital radio in my house too so I am sure I will actually be using the product now. That fake article link was pretty amusing. Very Onion-y.
6Music played the Foxx apparently. Was it this monumental event that triggered the closure? As far as I am concerned it’s the best station in the UK (the world), as a result.
So, I did the BBC survey and you lot have every right to be absolutely fucking furious. They talk about radio 6 like its a service for a small minority of skateboarders and hippies.
They wouldn’t treat other music like this.
The sums don’t add up either. £9million is clearly a great deal of money in man-on-the-street terms, but in terms of the sums of money the BBC deals with annually it’s no more a significant cut than trimming a toenail.
What this proposal is, then, is a act of public self-flagellation on behalf on Mark Thomson to attempt to appease certain sectors of the Tory party in case they get into power at the general election.
Instead, couldn’t he just pop round their office and quietly suck them off for a little while and leave 6music the fuck alone?
I think they already have people for that Dylan. Rupert Murdoch pays their wages.
Uh-huh.
Actually, the tone of that survey and the general George Lamb/Lesley wotsit shenanigans seems to show that the problem with 6Music is that the BBC hierarchy doesn’t have any idea what its value or even role is.
They seem to see it as some sort of unwashed hippy minority hangout, and have no idea that stations like that basically serve as the engine room for Radio1 and 2.
And as FM slowly dies out and internet radio comes to smartphones and, almost as importantly, the car, then they may find technology gives them a surprise helping hand.
Still, at least they’re planning to spend the money responsibly, on… Strictly Come fucking Dancing.
Just see where the money goes already:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/mar/01/information-beautiful-bbc-o-gram-spending
and what a tiny proportion of that is on 6Music.
So by cutting Ross and Norton they can pay for 6 Music. Done.
Fuck me – £76 million on CBBC and Cbeebies?! So that’s Blue Peter, some cartoons and….?
Also, as the BBC basically have no idea how many people listen to 6Music via DAB, the best way to get the message across would be to get as many people as possible logging onto the 6Music stream online. Just a thought.
Everybody relax…it’s all going to be okay; Lilly Allen has spoken out in defense of our beloved station.
Phew.
As shocking as it is to me, the problem possibly lies with the fact that there are a lot of people out there who either never heard of it, or never (for various reasons) been able to access it. The beeb seems to thinks it okay to spent a small fortune on bizarre TV advertisements for Chris Moyles or Fern Cotton’ banal radio shows and not a jot on 6Music.
I’ve already submitted various letters of objection/protest/disgust Fingers crossed guys.
I wrote to our local MP who is an all round good egg and has signed the parliamentary motion on this and written to the BBC Trust.
As he pointed out though, the BBC is independent (or scared shitless of the Tories who have Murdochs hand so far up their asses that he brushes David Cameron’s teeth of a morning) and the best way to swing this is for everyone here to pile on the pressure.
Time to break out the Basildon Bond Foolscap, Toadlings and write a few Disgusted of Lesser Stumpling Bottom style missives!
Meanwhile on Weds, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives combined to force through something that gives courts the right to block internet sites which are infringing copyright. Blogocide2010 will be as nothing if this gets through.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8549112.stm
And if ever there was a clear example of what Matthew is talking about, I am it. 6 Music was a route to Radio 2. End of. Blog on my site about that if you bored.
AC
(ps ignoring the bit about radio 2 what never happened – that’s too general – radcliffe and maconie show and dermot o leary show are exceptions to the rule on that station)
Incidentally, this will make you laugh, a few years back I met a bloke in charge of a very very big record company, and I had the night before done a 6 Music session, and I was telling him about it and he didn’t know what digital radio was, let alone what 6 music was. He said ‘how do you get that then? is that like an internet thing’. I joke not. I nearly cried.
Ctel – I saw that. Fucking scary. It’s like these idiots think the internet was only invented for criminal purposes, and never once think that with, say, a little ingenuity in the style of Ok Go they could achieve ten times the publicity results with a fraction of the spend, for example. Basically, they just want to shut out participation in general, don’t they, because that cedes control.
AC – sorry, I was being a bit vicious. There are one or two good shows on Radio1 and Radio2, but if 6Music goes then those shows will become the only avenue to mainstream airplay. This means not only that bands will be at the mercy of the whims of a tiny number of producers or DJ’s choices, but also that no matter how well-meaning they are they won’t be able to offer anyone consistent support because they’ll have so much material to get through.
No offence taken, the only thing that will enable bands to get through is cash, and we have little or none, so that is the end of that. I am actually more bothered as a music fan to be honest, I listen all the time.
Well they’ll be abandoning so much of the centre ground in doing this that there really will be massive opportunities for bloggers and podcasters to occupy, but at the moment, hardly anyone is consistent or long-lived enough to develop that kind of reputation and reach.
up steps the song by toad blog….
How long do Toads live? You could fill that gap someday. You should try and get some sleep some time though or you’ll be dead before long!!
You could scrap BBC Radio 1 and 2 tomorrow, and commercial radio would absorb 90% of the content and most of the presenters. But realistically, very little of 6 Music’s content will be taken on by commercial stations, and the UK radio spectrum will be much poorer for its loss. For this reason alone, the BBC should be supporting the station.
madcow – toads live for between 4 and 15 years, so this one is perhaps already in extra time
Well musicians only survive in the popular imagination for about six months at this point, so don’t be a smart-arse.
I’m a blogger – see, I’ve forgotten you already!
this Toad is already in an petrified state….
….the real scare here is that BBC proposed these changes before the Murdoch back numpties get anywhere near power…..thats beyond spineless!
You hear that Toad? BORROWED TIME.