The Future of Radio 6 music
sipst...@my-deja.com
Ross and so on except to observe that at many
points on the UK's North-South trunkways one
has a choice of Radio 1 or Radio 2, and local
stations, indies or beeb, are not necessarily what
you want on a longer journey, whether driving for
pleasure or pay (or to see the Mother-in-Law! eh!).
As such, such boosted stations with their strong
signals really do need to keep propriety in mind
and families.
Ross should have known better, and to coin an
anecdote from Ken Livingstone's book, would
quite possibly have got just as carried away in
a booking as a Stasi cop or SS bootboy, you can
even picture him having a good old adult guffaw
over kiddie porn; it is no excuse for someone
who can be fully expected to know the ropes of
the station, as well as the corporation, to have
got "carried away".
Brand is just an amateur, and maybe some time
on Kelvin MacKenzie's talkSPORT would turn
out a gobshyte with more professionalism, more
so if sponsors threatened to pull ads, say, in the
light of subsequent stunts and it was his pocket
being hit.
Then again, with its core audience of wideboy-
geezer types who're all men of the world, to a
man, and familiar with far more stag night prank
anecdotes than conquests Russell has enjoyed
it's unlikely he'd cause much but amusement.
Which brings us to the topic of this thread: 6 is
just not pulling the listeners in, it seems.
I don't see it being a widespread station of choice
in workplaces up and down the country; you tend
to get local commercial or Radio 2 in them. And
with all optimism for the new DAB format, the vast
majority of people who can receive it are television
viewers.
As such it seems both a shame to keep on flogging
a dead horse and also to waste the bandwidth in
the ElectroMagnetic Spectrum Allocation for the UK.
But, ultimately, the old TALK radio was very popular,
particularly in the day and particularly amongst the
more eloquent and informed listeners, before it was
talkSPORT.
But sport is where the money is, and it seems to
still be afloat. So, if this shift was a purely sponsor-
driven move where talkSPORT is concerned, there
is a niche for national listener-oriented talk radio
which 5live has never filled--it is not, after all, an all
day phone-in station.
This is a viable future for the BBC Radio 6 frequency
slot, particularly as listeners can be enticed away
from staples such as The Archers on Radio 4 or the
Victoria Darbyshire debates if there's a chance to
phone in live to continue the discussion on a dedicated
station rather than simply listen to a cross-section of
talking heads and carefully selected case studies,
independent skeptics and/or cause promoters.
It's a message board for when the M25 is actually
moving at rush-hour and people can't knock up a
quick crackberry-mail in between twitters and pokes
so instead have to phone hands free.
Again, I can't say I've listened to 6 music as is yet.
Maybe once. But there's just always been something
else higher priority, even if it is rolling news while I do
my own stuff.
G DAEB
COPYRIGHT (C) 2009 SIPSTON
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