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The Axe Over BBC 6 Music

3:41p.m., Tue 2 Mar 2010

So BBC Director General Mark Thompson has announced that (among other cuts) the DAB radio services BBC 6 Music and The Asian Network will be axed.

There's been a predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth. I'm generally feeling more ambivalent about the whole affair because I'm not a terribly loyal 6 Music listener, although I dip in regularly and have been listening to a slew of the podcasts the station produces.

The thing that's annoyed me the most is the justification that axing these services will "make more room for commercial broadcasters". I'm not entirely sure this is true. What I'd like to do here is draw a few parallels between 6 Music and Xfm.

First a little history, lest you need it. Xfm launched in 1992 broadcasting an anarchic and eclectic range of music. It was bought buy the Capital Radio Group in 1998 at which point the station was imbued with a little commercial radio professionalism and a more coherent playlist and schedule was introduced. At that point, and for a few years into the noughties, the station was incredibly similar to what 6 Music does now. Weekday daytime shows were personality-led but adhered to a simple indie-rock music policy. Weekends and evenings saw specialist shows such as The Remix (with Eddy Temple-Morris and James Hyman), The All-City Show (rap and hip-hop with Dan Greenpeace), The Rinse (dance music), Flo-Motion (weird electronica). Hell, Xfm was so much the template for 6 Music that a slew of Xfm DJs turned up on 6 Music: Adam & Joe, Russell Brand, Shaun Keaveny, Lauren Laverne, Stephen Merchant, Danny Wallace, Suggs (the Madness fella) & Jane Gazzo.

When I first joined Capital Radio Group in 2000 I'd meet people and Xfm would come up in conversation. The general response was "Oh, Xfm used to be really good util Capital bought it". This is not strictly true - if it had been any good it would have had enough listeners to avoid bankruptcy and buy out. Most of the people who spouted this nonsense hadn't listened to Xfm when it was independent and weren't listening to Xfm in its second incarnation. Added to which many of them hadn't bought a CD since U2's 'Achtung Baby'. There's a similar feeling that I get when people are talking about 6 Music at the moment. They like the idea of the station more than they actually like, and listen to, the station.

Over the latter half of the noughties Xfm tried to expand. At one point Xfm was broadcasting regionalised versions in Glasgow, Manchester and South Wales. Ultimately, it failed. The Xfm brand has always struggled to generate subtantial revenue. At the time of writing the station continues to broadcast in London and in Manchester but has been subjected to several rounds of redundancies and cutbacks. It's a very simple, strict, music-policy-led radio station with a fraction of the variety it might have broadcast in the past.

I've mentioned that we've seen DJs make the Xfm to BBC transition, it's by no means limited to on-air talent and the same goes for technical staff. Of course, there's been a flow the other way too. But when BBC employees have come to work for Xfm they've been astounded at the lack of support staff, astounded that DJs produced their own shows, answered the phones and manned the emails. Boy, they should see it NOW.

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant broadcast a Saturday morning show on Xfm from 2001-2004. They were big (and rising) stars amidst the glow surrounding The Office. The show was a success, but they were still being paid the standard DJ rate - about £75/hour at the time. There's no rational explanation as to why they bothered - for the love of it is the glib answer - because of a passion for radio and a love of the brand (despite their on-air disdain for it). As podcasting became a feasible option the pair left Xfm to record podcasts for The Guardian and subsequently off their own back. The podcasts subsequently became paid-for "audio books" - my mind boggles as to how much money they've made.

My, admittedly unreliable and hazily remembered, anecdotal evidence suggest to me two things. Firstly, when the BBC suggest that axing 6 Music is "leaving more room for commercial broadcasters" it's an utter, utter myth. I can accept that some listeners will be picked up by Xfm and Absolute Radio, but most will stop listening to the radio and/or turn to music subscription services like Last.FM and Spotify.

One of the crosses that 6 Music has had to bear is that it's broadcast on DAB only. This means a limited potential audience. As a flag-bearer and trail-blazer for the format its budget has far out-weighed its listener figures. Well, reality's arriving. A stupidly sudden and harsh reality of complete extinction though. Why such drastic measures?

The harsh downsizing of the commercial radio sector in the last few years has proved that radio stations can exist with fewer staff. When modern home PCs can produce broadcast quality audio and the in-built mic on an iPhone is good enough to record broadcast quality audio, radio stations should be downsizing. I'd argue 6 Music could survive on a fraction of the budget - Sunrise Radio founder Avtar Lit has already suggested that The Asian network could be run at a quarter of the budget and I see no reason why 6 Music couldn't be run as a much tighter ship.

If the passionate outpouring of outrage and disbelief from celebrity supporters has proved one thing, it's that there's an enormous amount of goodwill for the 6 Music brand and what it stands for. If that's the case, these DJs will work harder, for less. Answer your own phone, fatboy. For many it's a vanity project rather than a main source of income. Added to which, what's the choice? It's not like many of these DJs could earn more working for commercial competitors.

With 6 Music on a smaller budget. Will the quality suffer? Of course, but will their be enough quality? Enough to satisfy 6 Music's fervent supporter base. With some creative programming, celebrity goodwill, hard work and the strength of the brand (not to mention the boost it's getting at the moment!) 6 Music can (and should) survive.

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