Moon & Back Music

The Times Online today announced a heavy blow to listeners and lovers of alternative music around the world with the shutting down of BBC Radio 6 Music soon.

Since it’s inception in 2002, 6 Music has been at the forefront of decent music with specialised shows ranging from funk & soul (Craig Charles), heavy rock (Bruce Dickinson) and unsigned (Tom Robinson) to the now legendary Theme Hours of Bob Dylan and Dance Anthems of Dave Pearce.

Mark Thompson, BBC Director-General, believes the BBC’s road is one of ‘quality over quantity’ – ironic, then, to scrap a station whose tagline is “closer to the music that matters”. Although the decision is not definite, the rating-chasing BBC need only look at the figures for a pseudo-justification if this action goes ahead: only 20% of people have even heard of 6 Music, quarterly listening figures of 0.4% and, probably most importantly, the impending freeze of the TV lience fee in 2013.

All those are besides the point though: if the BBC would step back, look at it’s charter and realise that to carry on with 6 Music would cost less than a third of last reported wage of Jonathan Ross, it’s possible they would see that cut-backs from decent, adored services are not the way forward. Even more, if you were to judge the BBC’s services on their benefit to the public, I’m sure those of a floppy-haired cunt talking shite would be much further down the list than 6 Music.

With the closure of 6 Music as a whole, I sincerely hope some of the shows at least will get moved to other stations or be recorded as podcasts for download, but even this seems too much to hope for. With the small but passionate fan-base that 6 Music has, I’m sure there’ll be a few harsh messages posted on message boards and what-not, but unfortunately, I think we all know what the final outcome will be….another series of Holby City.