Excellent news!

Many thanks to the various organisers of the brilliantly run campaign to oppose the Corporation’s management proposals to close the station.

I attended the second demonstration protesting against the proposed closure of BBC 6 Music in the West End on Saturday 22 May 2010.

The day started at midday at the well attended demonstration, outside Broadcasting House, with a range of speakers and performers, expertly compared by Jon Holmes.

Later at 229 Great Portland Street there was a fantastic music gig connected with the demo. Artists included Eliza Carthy, Mirror Kicks, Magic Numbers (pictured) and Doyle & the Four Fathers.

The public consultation, carried out by the BBC Trust, has now closed.

The Trust plans to publish provisional conclusions this summer, and a final strategy in the autumn.

I haven’t seen anyone saying that 6 Music should close, and if the Trust propose to close the station, I’d be very interested to see their arguments.

I attended the fantastic demonstration protesting at the proposed closure of BBC 6 Music at Broadcasting House on Saturday organised by the Save 6 Music Facebook group.

Demonstrators from all parts of the country were joined by many of the radio station’s presenters, including Lauren Laverne, Tom Robinson, Liz Kershaw, Gideon Coe, Andrew Collins and Adam Buxton.

During one of the speeches, Tom Robinson made a point that hadn’t occurred to me about the proposals. He said the radio plans covering 6 Music and the Asian Network are part of a larger project that is fundamentally about marketing.

He said the management view was that the current branding is too confusing for listeners with too many station names. Therefore the plan is to have Radios 1 to 5, with related stations named 1Xtra, 2Xtra, etc.

No surprise given the marketing background of Tim Davie, BBC Director of Audio and Music.

Along with the speeches, there was also musical entertainment from The Coal Porters, Mirrorkicks, Black Soul Strangers, The Brute Chorus and Allo Darlin’.

Support was also given to the campaigns to oppose the closure of the Asian Network and cuts to the BBC website during the event.

At the conclusion of the gathering Adam Buxton summed up its purpose with the chant:

What do we want?
Leave us alone!
When do we want it?
For a long time!

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Commercial radio companies Global Radio and GCap have announced staff cuts impacting on radio stations across the country.

If approved by regulators, Global Radio will take over GCap to form the UK’s largest commercial radio group.

The level of cuts in the group does not augur well for the future.

The Guardian’s Organ Grinder pretty much reflects my view on the subject.

A twenty word summary by Digitagit, in a comment to the Guardian piece, gets right to the point.

Do they not understand that music radio is now much more about what’s in between the music?

If stations just play music, the audience will go elsewhere, either to other stations that invest in production, or to their own playlists using a myriad of digital devices.

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