Save BBC Radio 6Music

Rev-O said:
Gotta disagree there Tony. The Licence Fee is the best value tax I pay -- the quality and quantity of BBC output is staggering.

[...]

The airwaves need 6 Music as no-one else is doing that sort of thing, nor will fill its shoes if/when it goes.
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Two points Rev.

Have a minimal licence fee (£30 or £40 pa) and provide BBC1 & 2 and Radio 4. Simply allow everyone who wants the rest of BBC's output to subscribe to it...similar to SKY...suspect there may not be the huge amount takers you suggest. The BBC need to enter the real world.

The commercial broadcasting market will soon take a station like 6 Music and provide similar output if the audience is there. The fact that 6 Music is unique tells the tale. Again I suspect even the BBC luvvies know that every range of minority taste cannot be catered for. Candidly I'd never even heard of 6 Music until last week.

Controversial, moi?
 
Rev-O said:
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.
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Rev-O said:
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.
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Rev, I didn't say the licence fee wasn't worth paying I said the Beeb isn't the benign not for profit organisation you think it is because you have no choice but to pay the tax if you own a T.V.

It's true the archives are a huge and valuable resource but they will always be maintained and accessible long after the station has gone but the notion that 6 music can somehow act as a curator or cross pollinator is fanciful if not disturbing. It's one reason I'm happy to see the back of it as I wouldn't want the crusties there believing they are the gatekeepers or arbiters of taste, good or otherwise.

As Blyth said it isn't the job of the Beeb to fill niches and given the access to their vast archive it still only managed to nurture a miniscule audience share. Nobody listens to it and that ultimately is the "bottom line" for any station, public or commercial.
 
antdad said:
...it isn't the job of the Beeb to fill niches ...
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I certainly won't insult you by doing a reductio ad absurdam on that one Tony, but it's striking that a glance at the Radio 2 schedules reveals a whole string of niches catered to during the week - big band, swing, folk, country, Alan bloody Titchmarsh admirers etc. The same applies to Radio 1 in the wee small hours. Assuming that 6Music does get binned, presumably some of that rather diverse material is going to have to find a home somewhere since it clearly does have an audience which maybe is miniscule in terms of a whole radio station, but significant in terms of 1 or 2 hour slots. I don't expect the BBC to cater for my musical tastes by the way, but as regards the 6Music listeners, they surely deserve a sop of some kind.
 
I have no problem with Radio 2 having a varied and mixed programme of musical genres but to me NEW music is certainly a niche because as well as being small it cannot be easily defined. I'm not even convinced that new homes need to be found.

Anyhow, you made the point yourself Andy, you don't need a station dedicated primarily to supporting or nurturing live NEW music or releases outside the mainstream because the rules have changed and so has the listening environment. The music company's are not the gate keepers any more and neither are the BBC, a two hour slot on R2 somewhere may well suffice for likes of Rev because he likes to think he is still in touch with the kids.

The good archive material will come to the surface and good NEW music will find a way of being heard despite patronage but we all know that nothing NEW has really been created since 1974 but at least if R6 is gone there won't be any 40 year old crusties nodding their heads in a haze of newly discovered smugness.
 
We bought a DAB radio purely for 6 Music. Where else can you hear the likes of Sonic Youth, Stereolab, Neu!, Go Betweens, Film School, Maps, TV on the Radio, Boards of Canada etc etc?

We are not hippies or thirty somethings thinking we're "down with the kids". We just like good music, as do many other listeners who are campaigning against the closure of this superb station. XFM used to genuinely be "alternative", way back, but since it was bought by Capital it plays nothing but commercial rubbish liked by those who think Coldplay and Oasis are "indie"... grrrr!

Of course, there's Last.fm, Spotify, etc, but you can't beat a selection of tracks that have been thought out and presented by a DJ.

We will really miss it.

John
 
Yup, exactly the same here. I'm not a "hip priest" (copyright Mark E Smith) trying to be "cool" and "in with the kids" (all too few of whom know or care about real alternative music). I'm a man in my late thirties who likes good and /or new and/or "indie" music - and who is old enough to remember when music really could be independent (C86 and Flexidiscs on the cover of the NME; Peel in the evenings; gigs in pubs).

I genuinely like and (loosely) follow this "scene" and 6 Music is a key means and medium of me hearing good music.

I really hope it sticks around.
 
Arrowhead said:
Hopefully. I've been trying to reconcile Neu! with the idea of not being a hippy all day, but come on! Side 1 of Neu! 75 makes Gong sound bright eyed and bushy tailed.
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Isi, what a phenomenal track. Im glad I managed to pick up an LP re-issue of this. Neu 75 is a classic.
 
I'm currently helping myself to music I've previously paid for (on LP or CD or cassette) by using Spotify with Audio Hijack - captures the stream and saves it as an mp3 file.

;)
 
I'm not grumpy I just hate, so as you are all hippy's I just hate you all de facto.

Thought I'd better listen to 6 music for the first time given all the fuss and provocation...and well I thought so, you lot really are hanging onto your long lost youth for grim death aren't you?

I suppose its cheaper than a mistress or a shiny red sports car.
 
antdad said:
I'm not grumpy I just hate, so as you are all hippy's I just hate you all de facto.

Thought I'd better listen to 6 music for the first time given all the fuss and provocation...and well I thought so, you lot really are hanging onto your long lost youth for grim death aren't you?

I suppose its cheaper than a mistress or a shiny red sports car.
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:lol:

OK Tony, what should we thirty-something dads be listening to then? If we listen to the stuff from our younger days then we are holding on to our youths, but if we listen to new music then we are attempting to be cool, and failing embarrassingly. Should we all just abandon ourselves to Jazz? :shock:
 
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