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6 Music is saved! Another triumph for the whinging rockerati

The BBC Trust has caved into pressure from the luvvies; shame on it

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by Richard Lander on Jul 06, 2010 at 09:22

Predictably but sadly, the BBC Trust has caved into the whinging and whining of the rockerati and intervened to save 6 Music, which the corporation announced in March was to close.

'As things stand, the case has not been made for the closure of 6 Music. The executive should draw up an overarching strategy for digital radio,' the Trust said somewhat pompously on Monday.

Well maybe it should do that. But what the Trust shouldn't have done is to bow down before the avalanche of tweets and blogs from luvvies great and small who've grizzled like pathetic five year olds since the minute the closure was announced. It's the democracy of the lynch mob.

As I've said here before; the hypocrisy of the 6 Music generation is a pathetic sight to behold. It is a generation that has spent the last decade breaking down every barrier the music and broadcasting establishment had taken a half century to mount.

They ripped CDs, downloaded songs legally and illegally and mixed their own playlists. They became their own DJs and radio stations. Enabled by technologies as diverse as Napster, the iPod and Spotify, they took part in the greatest period of social music discovery the world has ever seen.

And at the end of it all, they still wanted Auntie BBC to spoon feed them with a niche digital radio station whose remit could easily have been absorbed into the corporation's mainstream stations.

And they've got their way, parlaying the Beeb into doing something we can all do ourselves. In doing so, they have deprived the rest of us a chunk of money which the BBC could have devoted to original and unique drama, natural history programming or documentary of a quality nobody else can provide.

All so we have another outlet for listening to Pixie Lott.

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13 comments so far. Why not have your say?

Well said.

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Utter nonsense.

The "democracy of the lynch mob" comment is particularly moronic. It don't really see a few tweets and online petitions as a 'lynch mob'. What about Lumley and the Gurkas - I suppose they were similarly deplorable in their method?

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Complete crap and pretty ill-informed, it wasnt just the artists and presenters who lobbied for 6 music to remain, it was the listeners as well.

who's Pixie Lott?

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Richard? What is this tosh you have written here? And are you speaking on behalf of the monopoly broadcasters mourning the loss of their fortresses?

I consider we have had a thumping good application of listener democracy here.

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"...it was the listeners as well. " - How many exactly????

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more misjudged than Mr Dredds wife!!

Listeners doubled, is that lynch mob rule also? Possibly a bit of a wum article but if you're going to do that sort of thing you should at least be humorous or a bit tongue in cheek.

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More than 170,000 listeners by 23 May 2010, according to The Independent . . .

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Perhaps Richard Lander - or perhaps moreson his editor! - is simply jealous that his little commercial website could never be as well loved nor popular as 6Music.

So! Why not write up a load of twaddle to wind them up - with a shock headline! - full of utter tosh to drive up pageviews and generate a little bit of controversy.

What is a rockerati anyway?

Oh Richard, you cynical, cynical and artistically inert monster. Trust a journo-hack to espew such bilge. Wonder if he was listening to his trusty and reassuringly corporate U2 records (they know how to rock! They love Blackberries!) as he wrote this thrill-ride of an article?

I reckon Richard Lander ought to go and submit an article to http://www.pitchforkmedia.com.

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Agree with most of the comments here. R1 and 2 are becoming repetitive and 'corporate' Moved away to some of the more 'indi' types such as Absolute and Heart etc 6 music is the beebs only possible salvation.

From a 60+ 'rockeratie' fed up of the same old tosh put out by R1 and 2

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Never mind Pixie Lott, who is Richard Lander?

Seriously, it's not even an accurate article.

According to a better informed online article, there were "250 letters ... more than 25,000 emails, and nearly 50,000 online responses – 78% focusing on 6 Music."

Though I wish it had been, 6Music has not been saved, only given a repreive whilst a full review of cutbacks is completed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/july/strategy_review.shtml

Don't give up your day job Richard.

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Richard,

You've clearly got no idea about what 6 Music broadcasts (" All so we have another outlet for listening to Pixie Lott") nor know anything about the music industry. Next time you post your views on Citywire get your facts straight first. What a pointless article. I can't believe I've wasted 30 seconds reading it and 2 minutes posting this post.

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Ridiculous article. I'm almost embarrassed on his behalf that he so blatantly exposes his own prejudice that somehow natural history programmes, 'quality' drama, and documentaries were somehow more deserving of funding.

Anyway last time I looked the BBC's flagship dramas were Eastenders, Holby City, and Dr Who! Or Spooks whose central message appears to be that MI5 is called that because there are only 5 people that sort out all national security issues in the UK. Frankly HBO do it better these days.

What HBO don't do however is good niche music radio.

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Anonymous 2 needed this 'off the record'

Jul 06, 2010 at 14:46

Ignoring Richard's rather ill informed article (quiet news day?) I am really pleased that 6music has been spared, but how can it possibly cost £9 million a year to run it ! I suspect there must be quite a few BBC executives or "talent" in the 6music budget. Perhaps the cure for the long term is to get some efficiency into the organisation, rather than threatening to sever parts at random.

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