6Music saved – against the odds

I found out about the 6Music reprieve via a text message from my mother who, as far as I know, has never listened to the station, and probably wouldn’t have even known about its existence had it not been earmarked for the chop. There’s no doubt that the dismay surrounding the announcement of its closure has massively raised its profile, with listener figures rising and topping the million mark a few weeks back. But I’m genuinely surprised at the stay of execution. I’m delighted – not because they sling me a small amount of money to go on Nemone’s show every Wednesday afternoon and talk about technology stuff, but because I saw it as the thin end of a colossal wedge; if they start hacking back the quality output that they provide for minority interests in favour of insipid, low-brow entertainment, how long before BBC output ends up looking like Bravo TV? Or worse?

The process by which this has all played out is interesting. When the closure proposals were leaked to The Times and then confirmed by Mark Thompson, there was a massive outcry online. I saw someone suggest this morning that the whole thing might have been a carefully managed campaign from within the BBC – you know, announce the closure, stir up the outrage, then sit back and wait for the U-turn. Certainly, in this current chapter of the story of social media, it’s incredibly easy to whip up a Facebook or Twitter campaign that gets a few thousand people roaring it on, which then gets dutifully re-reported by the media and re-commented upon in an ever-building spiral of intensity; the 6Music campaign was one of the best examples of this, conveniently masking the fact that the number of people who actually cared deeply about the fate of the station (as opposed to being irritated by the idea of it not being there) was comparatively small.

But this was undoubtedly a campaign driven by listeners, and people who, like me, found it distressing to observe the BBC offering up sacrificial bits and bobs – and, without doubt, the wrong bits and bobs – in order to appease the government and the rest of the media. Yes, presenters on 6Music weighed into the campaign too, because they were understandably fearful of it being axed – it’s their livelihood, after all – and, deep down, I think listeners and 6Music employees alike genuinely expected it to go. Because surely the BBC, so often criticised for being weak, feeble and insipid, surely couldn’t be seen to be contradicting itself and going back on its pledges? That would surely have the Murdoch press screaming in outrage that a “mere Facebook campaign” is enough to derail their plans. And I’m sure we’ll see those kind of headlines in the next 24 hours.

Two things, though. Firstly, the Asian Network hasn’t been spared; there may be no big outcry on Twitter amongst media thirty-somethings about this, but there are a good few hundred thousand people who’ll miss it when it’s gone. And secondly, the battle’s not really over – because whenever this proposed “overarching strategy for digital radio” takes place, 6Music will, once again, be one of the first in line for the chop.

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