Ooh, a radio question. That’s novel.
For the benefit of overseas readers, 6Music is a BBC radio station that’s available on the Internet or on DAB radios (you don’t have those either). It covers “new music” (something close to US indie music) and other genres that appeal to musophiles.
And the BBC is about to close it. The reasons given are that it competes with commercial radio stations (maybe, but only in terms of the listeners, not in terms of content), it costs too much (it only costs a few million pounds to run), it doesn’t have enough listeners (although it has enough apparently to compete with commercial radio stations, except it doesn’t. Square that circle if you can), and the resources will be used elsewhere (true enough).
To replace it, the current plan is to provide a “Radio 2 Extra” – just as ITV2 gives related content to ITV1 programmes as well as original content of its own, so the new 6Music would do the same for Radio 2.
So this week’s question is:
Why are the BBC really closing 6Music? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Do you care? Will you listen to the replacement? Or is all this a storm in a teamcup, you can’t get this DAB thing anyway, and to hell with Internet radio?
For the advanced reader: repeat but for the closing of the Asian Network.
As always, leave a comment with your answer or a link to your answer on your own blog.
