Save BBC Radio 6Music

Arrowhead said:
At present all of you who pay the licence fee are financing Radio 4 for me, and please don't think I'm ungrateful. As regards music radio, the BBC has a track record of scrapping the good bits (anyone else remember "Mixing It" on Radio 3? - it's a wonder they've kept "Late Junction"), so it's no surprise that 6 Music is first up against the wall.

It seems to me that the BBC has become so wedded to the idea that it has to compete with the commercial sector that if your tastes run to anything more exotic than teenybopper product on Radio 1, the Eagles and similar audio sedatives on 2, or canonical classical music on 3, in five years time, you'll be stuffed.
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Nothing to add. That was so well-worded and true that I just wished I'd written it myself. "Mixing It" was ace; John Peel was ace: both undervalued by the populist and myopic BBC. *sigh* 6 Music is my last hope of cutting edge new music on the BBC. For that reason alone it is worth saving.
 
Arrowhead said:
At present all of you who pay the licence fee are financing Radio 4 for me, and please don't think I'm ungrateful. As regards music radio, the BBC has a track record of scrapping the good bits (anyone else remember "Mixing It" on Radio 3? - it's a wonder they've kept "Late Junction"), so it's no surprise that 6 Music is first up against the wall.

It seems to me that the BBC has become so wedded to the idea that it has to compete with the commercial sector that if your tastes run to anything more exotic than teenybopper product on Radio 1, the Eagles and similar audio sedatives on 2, or canonical classical music on 3, in five years time, you'll be stuffed.
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well said,nice to see two intelligent posts on this thread.
 
Tosh...the BBC has a habit of scrapping stuff only when its gone way past its sell by date.

Oh yeah I remember the "good bits" like when Bruno Brookes and DLT were playing SAW whilst the kids we were off their tits dancing in a field somewhere and pirate stations were two a penny because Radio 1 were about 5 years behind the curve. Do me a favour?

So who is 6 Music competing with exactly? What the Beeb does well is fill minor voids rather than "compete". In this case the demographic is quite easy to identify...

Gents of a certain age (25-45), probably married with kids grasping onto their last threads of youth who like to think they can still listen to "cutting edge" music because Auntie Beeb says it is and has put it on a plate for them. They can't get to many gigs any more as they are often a bit loud, they are too tired or can't get a baby sitter, its just Brit based NME fodder.

Lamacq isn't Peel and "cutting edge" shouldn't even be in your vocabulary any more.
 
I've never listened to Radio 6 as I'm an avid Radio 4 listener but I heard the amount they are saving is tiny in comparison to everything else. I'm all for keeping more small specialist audience mediums and getting rid of the rubbish that they pump out to the masses on Friday / Saturday night. Just think how many natural world, science, hard fact, etc programmes they could make with that.

The BBC shouldn't be competing with commercial, that's what all of the other commercial channels are for! And as other people have said before if it has celebrity, reality, voting on/off they should ditch it. I like to think of the BBC as an informative broadsheet rather than one of those "comics" that most people read like the Sun, Star or Hello.

I love a lot of the niche stuff that comes up on BBC 3 and 4 and also Radio 2 and 4 - how about a 30 minute on the history of shaving ;)
 
antdad said:
Tosh...the BBC has a habit of scrapping stuff only when its gone way past its sell by date.

Oh yeah I remember the "good bits" like when Bruno Brookes and DLT were playing SAW whilst the kids we were off their tits dancing in a field somewhere and pirate stations were two a penny because Radio 1 were about 5 years behind the curve. Do me a favour?

So who is 6 Music competing with exactly? What the Beeb does well is fill minor voids rather than "compete". In this case the demographic is quite easy to identify...

Gents of a certain age (25-45), probably married with kids grasping onto their last threads of youth who like to think they can still listen to "cutting edge" music because Auntie Beeb says it is and has put it on a plate for them. They can't get to many gigs any more as they are often a bit loud, they are too tired or can't get a baby sitter, its just Brit based NME fodder.

Lamacq isn't Peel and "cutting edge" shouldn't even be in your vocabulary any more.
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Tony, you had me incapacitated with mirth there. I'm pretty sure that you're right in most respects too, more's the pity. As regards "cutting edge", that's best reserved for my occasional metallurgical digressions with Henk, but in relation to music it still means Captain Beefheart, surely? :cool:
 
Arrowhead said:
Tony, you had me incapacitated with mirth there. I'm pretty sure that you're right in most respects too, more's the pity. As regards "cutting edge", that's best reserved for my occasional metallurgical digressions with Henk, but in relation to music it still means Captain Beefheart, surely? :cool:
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Of course, it's just that complaining about the Beeb not catering for minority music tastes is like complaining that Boots is not catering for our D.E shaving needs. They'll make a token effort but if you look hard enough you can find what you want elsewhere.
 
antdad said:
Arrowhead said:
Tony, you had me incapacitated with mirth there. I'm pretty sure that you're right in most respects too, more's the pity. As regards "cutting edge", that's best reserved for my occasional metallurgical digressions with Henk, but in relation to music it still means Captain Beefheart, surely? :cool:
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Of course, it's just that complaining about the Beeb not catering for certain music tastes is like complaining that Boots is not catering for our D.E shaving needs. They'll make a token effort but if you look hard enough you can find what you want elsewhere.
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Other way round, surely? BBC = not-for-profit, more like your old independent chemist with a real counter and lots of oddities for sale. Boots is the Murdoch / ITV Commercial sector: profit and volume is all they want. As for "cutting edge" I mean unsigned and/or new bands and/or new genres or subsets: basically something different. But otherwise I fit Tony's description like a glove. :lol:
 
Your being a little naive there Rev. If you think the BBC is a dusty NFP organisation have a look at BBC Worldwide and the real reason 6 music and others got it in the neck.

Like the church its sitting on a pile, pleads poverty but is hugely profitable, this has not gone unnoticed in Westminister.
 
Gotta disagree there Tony. The Licence Fee is the best value tax I pay -- the quality and quantity of BBC output is staggering. And 6Music (or "Sicks Mucus" as my wife calls it) really does fill a niche no other broadcaster could or would. By drawing on its existing resources (archives, personnel, studios etc) the BBC can quite cheaply and easily create a radio station of enormous depth and breadth; it's all about the viability achieved by economy of scale and not being driven a short-term bottom line. Also, 6Music helps make other aspects more viable: the element of curating or cross-pollinating can only be good but also it means better use of resources and therefore more chance maximise what they've already got.

But basically I like it. I like the old Peel Sessions, the live stuff, the new/unsigned bands (many of whom are crap, but that's all part of the deal) and the committed and knowledgeable dj's (Bruce Dickinson, Jarvis Cocker, Stuart Maconie, et al). It sits in a perfect slot between certain part of R1 and R2, with elements of XFM, student and internet radio thrown in. It can be a bit teenage geek but mostly it's just a bit cooler (or at least less rubbish) than the pop pap we're fed on all other national and local stations. The airwaves need 6 Music as no-one else is doing that sort of thing, nor will fill its shoes if/when it goes.
 
Rev-O said:
Gotta disagree there Tony. The Licence Fee is the best value tax I pay
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I wonder if that's because it's the only hypothecated tax we have. It's a tax on operating a TV receiver that just happens to be paid by convention over 100% to the BBC to use as an operating fund...

Compare and contrast Vehicle excise duty (Road tax) - less than 10% of that is spent on transport in general (never mind roads) - if it was all spent on transport, we'd have the best transport network in the world.
 
It's a deal. Nice one Andy, especially considering we have such similar tastes in radio stations and shaving gear.
 
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