When I first read of the pending decision to scrap BBC's mainly-web* 6Music, my instinctive reaction was 'Oh, that's a shame." Not that I listen to it, but I rather like the idea of a pop music station that doesn't just play whatever's due to be in the Top 20 next week.
The announcement was made formally earlier this week; by then I had adopted a view 'Yeah, go ahead and scrap it', largely because of the campaign to save it.
NB: None of the following remarks are intended to generalise about all Radio 6 listeners or indeed all of those who have been calling for its salvation
Many years of campaigning have taught me tactically never alienate or insult the Undecideds or Neutrals you wish to persuade to your point of view. If, for example, you are campaigning to save a pensioners' day centre, don't suggest the playgroup as an alternative victim. And don't insult the people who value their local parks and open spaces.
Many of the arguments that have been deployed smack of a smug sense of innate superiority and entitlement, best summed up in the catchphrase that was being retweeted by far too many people on my Twitter-stream "The only publicly-funded radio station for people who like music".
I was knocked-out by the sheer breathtaking arrogance and ignorance of that statement. Supposedly, Radio 6 concentrates on a particular niche, that of 'Indie Rock', a niche, as it happens, that is to my liking. I have been struggling for nearly 30 years, since I first scoured the 'Indie Charts' in Smash Hits, to work out whether Indie is a particular style of music or whether it should be defined purely by a commercial criterion - being on an 'Independent' record label that isn't part of of one of the multi-national giants. IIRC, the England World Cup record
"This time, more than any other time, we're going to find a way, find a way to get a way, getting it all together, to win the Cup is what we'll set out to do"
was number one in the Indie charts in June 1982, making the 'Indie' tag just a bit spurious.
However you classify music - big broad sweeping titles such rock and pop, folk, classical, jazz - or whether you go into every sub-category - bluegrass, baroque chamber vocal music, neo-bop, basement, whatever - most of them don't get a national publicly funded radio station.
It doesn't take great insight into human behaviour to know that we have very diverse tastes in music. Even within a genre, there can be fierce disagreement and I have found people whose tastes are 80% similar to mine and the other 20% makes me think "Er, what?". If you seriously think no music other than your preferred genre/sub-genre is likeable, I would suggest it is you that doesn't like music; if you can dismiss the entire outputs of Radios 1, 2, and 3, perhaps it's about time you emerged from your narrow cocoon and experienced something a bit wider.
I did read a blogpost that suggested that Radio 6 is for people 'not yet ready' for Mendelssohn and Mantovani. Great soundbite - and very revealing.
I could be bitchy and rephrase it as 'people who lack the musicality and intellectual curiosity to develop their knowledge and taste' but bitchy isn't my style!And the idea that you have to get 'ready' to listen to Mendelssohn is beyond laughable - and probably coming from someone who has (deliberately) never knowingly heard Mendelssohn in their entire life!
This was the same blogpost that praised good old former GLR (a radio station I used to love) but picked Danny Baker as one of the highlights - Danny Baker, whose breakfast show the morning after Jean Le Pen came second in the first round of the French Presidential elections had a phone-in which featured such gems as "We're called Pete and Sue and this couple moved in next door and they were also called Pete and Sue, we nearly died laughing"
I hate the idea that music tastes can be determined by age or or demography in general, but a survey of the listeners of any particular radio station would probably find age-related trends. I guess that the target audience of Radio 6 is 25-ish to 45-ish and rather more male than female.
So, part of the campaign involves dissing Radio 2 because it's mainly for Housewives and the Retired. Invisible and irrelevant people, in other words, who don't deserve to be considered by any public organisation because they're not 30-something males, the most important group in society. In fact, I have heard a lot of older people are pretty pissed off at Chris Evans being on Radio 2 breakfast show, because his style of radio (like that of Jonathan Ross) is aimed primarily at 25-45 year old males. (And yet, more of the population is over 50 than under 50 - or something like that).
Ultimately, that's all a bit petty. Maybe it's time that the role of radio was seriously rethought, anyway. There seems to be a general consensus that daytime music radio is largely wallpaper, to be played in shops and cafes or when driving, and that music radio stations, in general, are more interesting in the evenings.
A cursory glance at the Radio Times shows me that large portions of the schedules of Radios 1, 1-Extra, 2, 6, and many commercial stations are largely made up of the presenter's name. Some of them mean something to me, most of them mean little. Each of them seem to have a token woman among all the men - Radio 2 seems even to have an Asian woman. So, actually it's no real guide to what's on.
Some of them mention that the show includes some 'live sets' (no clue as to who is playing 'live') but the implication is that most of the rest is a mixture of commercially available records, talk (or blather) from presenters, and phone-ins - where members of the public get a few moments of fleeting fame so the station doesn't have to pay money for quality content from professionals.
Nowadays a lot of commercial stations have done away with presenters. They don't need the skills of putting a needle on a track and they don't see any need to pretend that the personalities are choosing what to play. Radio 6 is no different from Radio 1, or, I suppose, Radio 2 in being 'playlist' driven - a committee of executives (or a station controller) deciding what should be played, over and again, on a week-by-week basis. At what point does 'entertainment' become 'advertising'?
I have seen lots of arguments that Radio 6 is great for spotting new talent. Things like 'we don't get many people at our gigs and our My Space only got a few hundred hits so without Radio 6 we wouldn't have had exposure'. I'm tempted to say - if your gigs aren't attractive and few people are interested in your internet self-promotion, maybe a commercial career isn't for you. I know it's not that straightforward, and I definitely know that commercial success and great art have no correlation, but I would also argue that there is no divine right to be heard.
BBC pop radio emerged in the 60s as a reaction to people hungrily listening to the latest pop record releases on Caroline, Luxembourg etc. But that was before I was born, and I'm now an old fogey; maybe, in the internet era, it's time to move on.
I would guess that most Radio 6 listeners have broadband (I realise that in some remote areas like the Highlands and Islands broadband isn't widespread but I need some convincing that a radio strategy should be built around this restriction).
It is no longer necessary to wait with baited breath for the new releases to be played on Radio 1 or to read Smash Hits/NME to find out what's happening. Surely, if you are part of an internet community that shares your taste in music you will find out by word of mouth (or typing) about some new act that's worth checking out, and in turn, you'll report your own live discoveries.
There is still a place for studio records, but my glance at the Radio Times doesn't tell me where it is. Records can tell a story; a skilful presenter can make that happen. And yes, I don't listen enough these days to pop radio to know who the skilful presenters are. Recordings are incredibly cheap - the first single I bought in 1978 was 69p. In 2009 I almost downloaded Rage Against the Machine's Christmas number one - for 29p. Albums cost at least a fiver back then; even the cost of a tape to record your mates' copy was quite a lot of pocket money.
It's actually a bit strange that 6 out of 8 of the BBC's national radio stations are to a large extent music based, and that these are so rigidly divided into genres (Radio 2 perhaps less rigidly). Even now, retuning radios is more cumbersome than changing TV channels, but that is becoming less so with radio-via-internet and radio-via-satellite/cable-TV. For some reason I don't have a tuner with my current stereo but 20 years ago I bought a mini-system where your could pre-set up to 40 stations, and I think this will be the norm when analogue is phased out. Iplayer means you don't even have to listen at the scheduled time.
There seems to be little reason for dividing radio into genre-driven stations. Yes, it can be annoying to hear jazz (unpleasant to my ear) if I tune in early for Opera on 3 on a Saturday evening, but, that's life, I get over it. Commercial radio - I think of Melody, Heart, Jackie and various hyper-local stations around the country - seems to do reasonably well providing the bland music-as-wallpaper I hear in cabs and hairdressers.
The record industry has to face up to major commercial change arising out of technological changes. It grew rich in a symbiotic or parasitical relationship with radio. Of course, the record industry is suffering commercially, so probably needs radio more than ever. But it doesn't seem clear to me that radio needs the recording industry, and it certainly doesn't seem that music lovers (irrespective of taste - or lack of!) need radio to bring new material to their attention.
When I was a kid, I had a sort of ambition to be a radio disc-jockey (prior to becoming Prime Minister). I did a bit on student radio (award-winning URN, although I never got near awards!), but I found I preferred the speech-based news/magazine style, and, ultimately, preferred to 'do' rather than passively react to others doing. Back in the 70s I was aware of Annie Nightingale being just about the only woman on national pop radio; I don't think it's changed much since.
TV isn't much better - how many serious documentaries get presented by women, compared to how many get presented by Snows, Dimblebys, and all the other Establishment males - Sharma, Fry? Other than Alice Roberts I'm struggling to think of any (although I'm probably forgetting someone obvious).
I get sick of the predominance of male voices on Today, but the schedule for Radio 4 is interesting today: Kirsty Young, Patti Smith, Clair Jaquiss, Jenni Murray, Lucy Ash, Francine Stock, Carolyn Quinn, Kirsty Lang, Lisa Jardine, with about as many men scattered in between. Radio 4 manages as many Kirstys as Radios 1 and 6 manage entire women between them. Not that it matters in itself but it really does demonstrate how pop radio in particular is stuck in a timewarp of male-dominated commercially-directed shilling for the record companies.
I don't see any persuasive argument for retaining Radio 6, other than it plays music that some people enjoy, but I also see no persuasive argument for the analogue FM stations to carry on in the same style they have been for my entire life. There is scope for more diversity, for more real live (or recorded live) music and, I would hope, for more speech-based but not-in-the-style-of-Radio-4 programmes.
* I know it's also available on DAB and satellite/cable TV
