Radio boss: Commercial sector will gain nothing from 6 Music closure
Quidem CEO and former group operations director of GCap, Steve Orchard, on what the proposed closures of 6 Music and Asian Network will mean for the commercial radio industry.
My old colleague Shaun Keaveny, the BBC 6 Music breakfast host, went on air and described himself as “choked”; his fellow presenter, the excellent Lauren Laverne, professed to “love this station with all my heart”.
The record industry described the proposed closure of the station as “an act of cultural vandalism”. Tim Davie, the head of all BBC Radio, weighed in - “I too am passionate about 6 Music” - but stuck to his guns: “we have to do fewer things better”. Meanwhile, it seems that the Asian Network is going to disappear without as much as a whimper.
Commercial broadcasters have been furiously hacking away at their cost base for the last five years. Our digital radio stations have been closing down and local output on ITV and ILR has been cut right back. During this harsh period of survival economics, we have cast envious glances at the BBC and its sumptuous resources.
The public too has become uneasy at the thought of the nation having to tighten its belt whilst funding a broadcaster which seemed to exist in a bubble of excess. BBC expenses and superstar salaries were somehow lumped in with dodgy MPs and bankers’ bonuses. Whilst continuing its deep affection for Sir Terry and Strictly, the public fell out of love with the Corporation. Against this backdrop, the BBC leadership started to address the need for radical change; this week’s announcements are therefore not surprising.
So, has the moment of reckoning arrived? Are we reveling in delicious schadenfreude in the commercial sector? No, and no. It is significant that the BBC has signalled an end to its life-long expansion but in doing so it isn’t vacating any space from which commercial broadcasters can create realistic opportunity. Worse, it appears to be moving out of “difficult” niche areas in order to fortify its mainstream appeal.
The decision to cut services because they are too small is ominous. Are the BBC’s remaining radio stations now to be driven overtly by the desire to increase share? Surely that’s not the purpose of public funding. 6 Music’s budget of £9m is so much bigger than anything in the commercial radio sector, but even it is dwarfed by the staggering £90m that it costs to run Radios 1 and 2. Our sector’s beef has been with the commercialisation of these two giants not the bijou 6 Music.
Commercial radio can never replicate 6 Music’s cultural value – it’s not viable for us to do so. The commercial landscape has featured many fine rock music stations that have never made any real money – over time we water them down and gently shepherd them back towards the traditional commercial heartland. We will gain nothing from this closure yet the music industry will lose much.
There is one more sting in the tail; we are losing two unique services from DAB radio. DAB is vital to commercial radio’s future. We need the BBC’s firepower and quality to help create new services that persuade listeners to buy new sets. That job just got harder.
Steve Orchard is a former group programme director of GWR – he launched Planet Rock and programmed Classic FM – and ex-group operations director of GCap – responsible for XFM and Capital. In 2009 he set up Quidem Ltd and acquired the Touch FM radio group from Cumbrian Newspapers. He is Quidem's CEO and also owns Peachy Music, which manages recording artists.