that this bit is more relevant than the rest.

'The report is being considered by the corporation’s governing body, the BBC Trust, and is due to be made public next month'.

if true. But baffling; wasn't it just a week or so ago that the BBC trust released its report on Radio 2 and 6 music and its recommendations for the future? (It was - report here http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/our_work/service_reviews/service_licences/... )

The closure of 6 has been rumoured for a while and I would be seriously dismayed to see it end - I have it on more or less all day and frankly it was the only reason I bought a DAB radio a few years back.

To my mind the proposals as laid out in the Times report don't make sense - cutting services so the private sector are allowed to take up the slack? The BBC should do what it does best, providing high quality programming across the board without reference to anyone elses market share.

Here's a sinister phrase from that report: "the BBC will also pledge to allow commercial stations to be the main providers of popular music to listeners aged 30 to 50". That would be me, then, and, I believe, quite a lot of the residents of this blog: anyone else less than enchanted by that prospect?

Until our household acquired a DAB radio back in 2003, I had more or less stopped listening to music radio, as there simply wasn't a station - commercial or BBC - which played anything I wanted to hear on a regular basis. If 6Music does now disappear, presumably the same will be true once more. (I must admit I haven't checked out the commercial competition lately, but I will be surprised and delighted if there is another station which broadcasts anything even resembling the 6Music weekday evening line-up of Marc Riley and Gideon Coe).

The worrying thing is that this suggestion seems to be an attempt to forestall the political argument that the BBC is too powerful an entity and needs to be reined in, to allow commercial rivals to compete (though nobody ever seems to suggest that the NHS should go easy on treating patients to give BUPA a fair crack of the whip on the most profitable operations...); but if that's true, this makes no sense. They should be closing Radio 1, or Radio 2; there's no shortage of stations playing what they play. If there is any part of the BBC that is fulfilling its remit of individuality, and providing services that are wilfully uncommercial, it's 6Music.

frankly there's nothing *remotely* close to what Radio 1 provides.
Zane Lowe's show is probably the single most exciting and passionate music show aimed at the 16-25s group being broadcast anywhere in the world right now, but that's a debate for another time. Let me just say from the POV of someone who Radio 1 is aimed it the alternatives are miserable and depressing everywhere else.

I blame George Lamb!

How do they justify the existence of BBC3PintsofLager? Where does that fit into 'upmarket, quality broadcasting'?

No plans to cut the ludicrous amount they spend on corporate branding and idents?

Is this Murdoch making mischief? Or is there any truth in it? If the latter it would be a crying shame. As has been pointed out in previous posts, the station plays a tremendous variety of music - both old and new and in the main has a pretty good range of presenters.
To think that a commercial station would offer the same range of music is laughable.

I once sat in on a meeting with the heads of XFM and Virgin (as was) and their view on what constitutes "suitable" music for their listeners was a bit of an eye-opener.

If anyone posting on this site feels strongly about these proposed cuts may I suggest they contact Auntie?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

this bit is more relevant than the rest

Maybe we should raise the profile of 6 Music and set up a petition?

At best, I'm hoping that Maconie's Freak Zone gets a free transfer to Radio 3 and that Gideon Coe gets a proper slot somewhere. I would say that these programmes are exactly the kind of thing I pay my license fee for.

I read recently that 6 Music actually costs the BBC less to run than Jonathan Ross, so I simply can't see where the savings are coming from. It just smacks of a senseless sacrifice to appease the Gods amid the coming of the big blue dawn.

In short, bugger!

... though hardly anyone listens to either of them. I read a report last week that said (flippantly, but probably accurately) for the cost of running the Asian Network (£12.5 million a year) compared to the number of listeners (360,000) and the time they spend listening (average 9 hours a week), it would be cheaper to produce and e-mail a podcast to every listener every day than keep it going.

at least the BBC will now be able to create more comedy jewels like The Persuasionists...

...but I've never listened to 6Music, so can't claim to be in mourning.

"Commercial alternatives"? There simply aren't any. The closest thing I know of to 6Music on commercial radio is the lamentably dire XFM, which is presumably now being used in the NHS on the strength of its medicinal properties as the most powerful simultaneous emetic and laxative known to man.

6Music is the pop equivalent of BBC4. I can't believe they'd consider getting rid of it when BBC3 is still standing - it's the very definition of quality, upmarket broadcasting. The only watchable thing on BBC3 is Doctor Who repeats in any case, but even so - the BBC needs to stop chasing ratings and focus on what it does well: intelligent stuff that no-one else could possibly fund.

Ah well. Sic transit and all that.

6 music is the best thing on British radio typical when we get something good we try and destroy it

If the station closes it'll mean the loss of many jobs... producers, broadcast assistants, support staff, George Lamb....

it's an attack on public service broadcasting by news international the Daily mail group et al for commercial and ideological reasons. There will always be bits of the BBC you don't like, because at it's best it reflects Britain and frankly there are bits of Britain I don't like. But to hack up the BBC piecemeal and under a knife directed by it's haters would destroy something unique and irreplaceable. You can dream about a gold age of tv etc but the present output of the BBC will be enjoyed/used by most people round here almost everyday. Every large organisation needs reform and the BBC don't do themselves any favours with the spending sometimes but the cultural life of Uk and to a surprising level the rest of this small world would be considerably poorer without the BBC so save 6 music and the Asian network.
#save6music

There are a number of interesting things about this story:
a) are both the bbc and the dirty digger flying ideological kites here?
b) the report was done by a former Cameron right hand man obviously brought by the Beeb to show their empathy with old shiny face.
c) as is noted, there are a number of political games being played here: 1) is anyone calling for the saving of Asian Network? Is that expendable while Scots/ Irish language service which are much more minority aren't?
2) the quality argument is coming by the back door. ITV and C4 should do the young entertainment, Sky will do the arts and news presumably and the BBC will be left drifting towards high quality PSB gehttoisation as experienced in the US.
3) The BBC does not spend that much on imported US TV - but does drive the price up for Sky/ 5/ various satellite channels who stake part of their future on these imports
The only fly in the ointment is 6Music - there is no commercial alternative other than music TV, that is.

I don't want my music as an afterthought, slotted inbetween bloody awful ads and banal broadcasters. I've tried to give Rock FM a listen in Manchester but then we get some pretend ruffian in a black t-shirt warbling piffle & waffle before an ad for motorbike insurance shoves its way into my lugholes. They make Roberta of Spotify look positively angelic.

I'm over 50 so there will still be a home for me in Radio 2, with the likes of Desmond Carrington & Brian Matthews, until I am wheeled away to the Happy Home for the Perpetually Confused and Saga FM. I still feel for the young 'uns though, having their intelligence abused by the likes of Moyles & Co. on a daily basis.

I'm sure the Massive would like to make their views known in their usual articulate and well-informed way:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/contact/index.shtml

"The Trust is keen to hear your views during consultations and service reviews. You may also contact the Trust to appeal against a complaint finding by the BBC Executive, complain about the Trust or the Trust Unit, or commment(sic) on matters of Trust business."

Get in touch:

BBC Trust Unit
180 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5QZ

Email: trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

Telephone
Call the information line on 03700 103 100 or textphone on 03700 100 212.
Lines are open from Monday to Friday, between 9.30am and 5.30pm.

6Music is mainly missable during the daytime midweek hours for me, but essential listening 7pm to midnight (Marc Riley & Gideon Coe) and at the weekend (Guy Garvey, Freakzone, Don Letts, Jarvis Cocker etc).
Lets hope this news isn't yet fact.

I would like to know just how much it costs to run each radio and television station. Does anyone know if there is a site that gives us this breakdown?
Maybe the BBC could consider ridding itself of the mind-numbing excrement that is BBC 3 instead of cutting the only music station that plays good contemporary music and fulfills the BBC's own remit - 6 Music.

... is a commercial decision disguised as politics.

By closing down DAB stations the BBC can pretend that it's acting in the interest of the radio industry as a whole, allowing competition etc. But if the Tories get in I'd suspect that a digital switchover for radio will not be a priority for them. Therefore if the BBC closes some stations with low listenerships it can score political points with the new government, by seeming to be less "bloated" without doing real harm to itself.

But you'll notice that BBC 3 is being left alone even though its mostly awful? Sadly things like Gavin and Stacy and Little Britain started there, generating sales of DVDs, books, etc. BBC Worldwide have done quite well out of BBC 3.

Therefore we have the sad occasion where the public service, slightly niche, slightly specialist areas are being dropped in favor of what is profitable and spun as "bbc voluntarily admits its too big." .

Plus Broadcasting House, Pacific Quay and Salford have to be paid for somehow...

Budgets etc should be in the BBC annual report. I can't be bothered to find the exact figures (I am at work after all) but they can be found somewhere around this link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/exec/financial/index.shtml

If the BBC is going to shut 6Music down, they really ought to bite the bullet with Radio 2. It is currently a mish-mash of the horribly dated sounding (Bruce, Wright, Pick of the Pops, Sounds of the 60s etc) and the modern-ish (Evans, Mayo, R&M). They should cream off the best of 6Music and import that into R2 and create a new 'Radio Old' station on the digital radio station where 6Music resides. It can feature all the old favourites and appeal to those in the 60+ bracket who think R2 has becomes too modern. And R2 can forge ahead with its transitioning.

I'd wager that the listening figures of 'Radio Old' would far exceed 6Music.

But can you imagine a commercial station even contemplating the idea of Freakzone?

For those who are suggesting Xfm as an "alternative", isn't that a London station? I've never come across it on my DAB radio

the introduction of 'personality' presenters like George Lamb spelled the end of regular listening for me. I'll miss the Freak Zone though.

It's all down to the sustained attacks from The Daily Mail, Sun, The Times etc.
They have demanded their pound of flesh on a daily basis slowly chipping away by finding and inventing anti-BBC stories for years.
They're slowly but surely getting their way.

http://www.popjustice.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4478...

http://agagaday.blogspot.com/2010/02/6-music.html

This morning i've heard Can and Husker Du on the morning show. Which commercial station is going to do that?

I switched off after Phil Jupitus and Gideon Coe left the breakfast and morning slots, just wasn't the same after that, but I'd still be sad to see it go

Snog, Marry, Avoid is safe then.

“6 Music keeps the spirit of broadcasters like John Peel alive and for new artists to lose this station would be a great shame”

God bless him.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/feb/26/bbc-6-music-licence-payers

Personally, I think the cancellation (if it happens) is just a hint of what's to come once Dapper Dave and his cronies come into power. Tories + Murdoch = a tattered BBC...

ingenue, but why not divvy the services up?

Give Asian Network the 6am-6pm slot, and run 6music from 6pm-6am, with a weekend day each. I realise that reducing the service by half won't necessarily mean that you'll be halving the costs of either.

Or why not make BBC7 a listen-again only service?

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=278123313911

Over 63,700 members already, which if I'm not mistaken is more than the listenership.

What is that all about then? The last rites of dismal, ancient BBC "comedy" failures? How many listeners that does generate - outside of the captive audience of the care-home population?

And they chose to contemplate chopping R6music, probably the thinking mans only reason to invest in DAB - out-bloody-rageous (Soft Machine reference elegantly slid in there....)

is the highest rated digital station.

Worth it for repeats of Round The Horne I think.

Is reporting possible axing of 6Music, Asian Network and cutting the BBC website by half.

Crap!

I think the BBC website is a fantastic resource and to just have it restricted to programme-related matters will be a shame.

6Music and the Asian Network are surely the stuff that the BBC should be supplying - what's not, and is never likely to be, available commercially.

It's the Strictly Come Dancings, Eastenders, Casualties, National Lotteries and (whisper it) Match of the Days that any commercial station can provide that should be first on the list if the BBC is going to save money...

in its reporting has been critical of the GB winter Olympics squad's failure to win more than one medal despite having been in receipt of £5.8m of public funding. I did wonder how much the BBC's coverage of the same event has cost, and whether numbers of its staff employed in Vancouver were greater than that of team GB? Now that's where the BBC should be looking to make cutbacks.

... when everything we love is gone?

Whenever I've tuned into BBC 6, which is incidentally 'never' since the Ray Davies/George Lamb (who?) debacle, it seems to play indie pop from about 1983 followed by indie pop from about 1983.
Unfortunately, indie pop from about 1983 is crap.

In its trawling of material from further back, I'd be far more gutted if I heard that BBC 7 was facing the chop......'Hancock's Half Hour', 'The Goons', 'Round The Horne', 'Dad's Army', 'The Likely Lads'........erm.......result!
How can it be a surprise that the Comedy/Drama channel gets bigger audiences than BBC6 with shows like that in the schedule?

Musically, the culling of Lamarr's 'Alternate 60s' show and the lack of real enthusiasm shown by the 12-year-olds at the BBC for 'Shake, Rattle & Roll' is of far, far greater concern.

That if the BBC want/need to get rid of a digital radio station, the obvious one to go is surely the execrable 1xtra! Unlistenable drivel with incoherent and unintelligible presenters.

Although I have to say that 6Music started to drop in quality when it was taken under the control of the Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas instead of having its own controller. She seemed to regard it as a place for stand-up comics who like the sound of their own voices as presenters, and a training ground for Radio 2 presenters.

... and not just music ones. Young parenthood, gangs, peer pressure have all featured. No other station does that stuff at all, certainly not Radio 1.

and I am a radio 4 man usually,any loss of access to music is to be deplored.I have never been a big listener of music stations preferring to have control over the music I listen to and apart from the late John Peel find radio jocks an appalling bunch of egotists hellbent on forcing their repellent so-called personalities on a partially distracted audience.However I've taken to listening to 6 in the kitchen when rustling up food and I have enjoyed it.How about Radio Word taking over I'll put my name down to host the night slot.On a more serious point we all need to take care when slagging off the B.B.C.I know they can be galling in some of their more asinine choices but do we want to live in Murdoch controlled media hell,I for one do not.

It's good.

For all those expressing justifiable anguish at the prospect of 6Music closing down (and even for those who don't listen but understand this as an attack on the core values of the BBC) please don't think there's nothing you can do.

There is an active campaign in full swing pulling as many strings - political, music industry, press etc - as possible. But ultimately this is a decision that will be taken by the BBC so it's the BBC that needs to hear our voice(s).

The BBC ignores tweets and facebook posts and petitions. But it pays attention to the number of complaints it gets. So please, please say what you feel here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/homepage/

It only takes 5 minutes. You'll get a pre-formatted response, but don't be disheartened by that. Your complaint has to be recorded. And a lot of complaints = panic at the bbc. Write! Write! Write!

And for those with a little more time write in person to:

trust.enquiries@bbc.co.uk

and

michael.lyons@bbc.co.uk

Bunch of barbarians

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8544150.stm