To whom it may concern,
Hello.
As a voiceover on BBC 6Music, and therefore a supplier of goods, I’m not 100% sure if I’m meant to maintain an impartial stance on today’s news or not, but speaking from a listener’s unbiased perspective, the publishing of today’s Digital Strategy Review has surprised me somewhat, especially considering the clean bill of health the station received from the BBC Trust last month.
I understand that like anything, the BBC is a business and as such needs to keep expenditure at a manageable level. I also understand that with a General Election looming, the political pressure coming from the Conservative party asking the BBC to justify its financial output needs appeasing. But the one thing I can’t understand is why the BBC executives feel the need to “fix” something that’s not really broken.
It’s probably a tired old cliché by now, but 6Music is, without doubt, an exceptional radio station. It’s one of the only radio stations in the entire country that champions the underdog and actively encourages and helps nurture new talent. Tom Robinson’s show is dedicated to it. With Steve Lamacq being such a devout gig-goer he advocates others to do the same. In an age where musicians can only really gain money by gig sales and not album sales; in a climate where the average band can only dream of breaking-even through record sales alone, 6Music has proven to be a valuable resource, helping artists get the audiences they need to maintain themselves. It truly is an inspiration to a lot of people.
With such a loyal listener base, closing down 6Music will leave an entire generation of listeners with nowhere to go. A whole 20 to 30-something demographic alienated, feeling too old or fed up to listen to Radio 1, too young for Radio 2, not really willing to make the jump to commercial radio. I can’t say I blame them; there’s nothing that really CAN compare to 6Music, not nationally, anyway. Stations like XFM and Absolute Radio attempt to bridge the gap (the latter even makes a half-decent attempt at it), yet at the end of the day they’re still governed by commercial models; models that cannot be applied to 6Music, whose programming isn’t governed by top line numbers, RAJAR diaries or quarterly sales figures; just pure, unbridled passion for playing the music that it loves. There just wouldn’t be any viable impact on the commercial sector by closing the station down.
If the reasoning behind the proposed closure is purely down to expenditure, it doesn’t make sense to me. The figures don’t stack up. There are approximately 23 million households in the UK. For argument’s sake, let’s say one million are aged over 70 and therefore don’t have to pay a TV license. Let’s also say that another million don’t have licenses for any other reason. That leaves us with 21 million households, each paying (for argument’s sake, let’s say they’re all colour licenses) £142.50. With an estimated annual budget of £7 million, approximately 33p out of every television license gets spent on 6Music per year. I would work it out on a daily rate but the figure’s so exponentially small it’d make my calculator go nuts.
If the reasoning is down to the amount (or comparable lack) of listeners then this doesn’t make sense either. As there’s nothing to really compare 6Music to, the station is in a unique situation. It’s not going to attract the same kind of audiences at Radio 1 or Radio 2; it’s on the digital spectrum. It’s like trying to compare BBC4 audiences to BBC2’s; it just doesn’t compute. Out of the listening population, only 12% listens via DAB. So out of an estimated total audience of 51 million, there’s only 6.12 million that have the ability to listen (let’s leave out online listening for now). With a weekly audience of 695,000 (sourced from RAJAR), on an average week approximately 9% of the available audience listens to 6Music. It’s not the biggest market share, by all means – but it’s far greater than the 1% estimated in the Trust’s review in February. And this figure is rising all the time; over the past nine months the audience has grown by over 100,000. This growth in audience share is admittedly slow, but it proves that these people are dedicated, ever growing and don’t go away. Since 2005, by the same tone, it’s attracted almost half a million new and devoted listeners.
From personal experience, I have travelled all over the country setting up and presenting on both commercial and community radio stations and without doubt, every single station I’ve worked for could only dream of sounding like 6Music does. Nine times out of ten the only thing preventing them from doing this is the available budget. The BBC has the expenditure and the resources necessary to keep 6Music as a truly unique, unparalleled radio station. Throughout the station, from the on-air staff to the production team, the talent is of an unprecedented level. It’s extremely tight, unbelievably professional and results in eclectic radio that in terms of diversity can only really be compared to Radio 4.
The BBC is a multifarious network. There is no other broadcaster in the world with such a wide and varied portfolio of platforms. There is truly something for everyone, and the element of choice speaks volumes. 6Music leads the way in “real” radio. Without it, other broadcasters like myself will have nothing to aspire to and an entire generation of listeners will spend their days without the warmth that a simple radio station can offer.
Thank you for your time.
Pete Nottage