The BBC needs the courage of its convictions, not least in the face of those with VERY vested interests criticising it. Yes, Murdochs, Bazelgettes etc I truly AM looking at you.
Later today the announcements that we have all known are coming will finally arrive: closure of sections of the BBC will be proposed and put out to public consultation before the Trust adopts the closures anyway (what? does anyone REALLY think that whatever the public say will help? I wish it could be otherwise. It would be nice to think our voice actually matters instead of it being the semblance of listening...).
The Radio 4 Today programme is running a series of reports this week about the BBC changes over the years and today one commentator mentioned that whilst Radio 1 and Radio 2 clearly overlap with the commercial sectors, in terms of providing unique quality content 6Music and the BBCAsian Network both do that. Indeed, with the 'old' BBC attitude hat on, the Corporation itself had only recently said that the problem with 6Music was only that it needed to grow its audience. There was nothing wrong with the content.
But Radio 1 and Radio 2 are BIG BEASTS: no one is going to dare to get rid of them, however much their music and DJ content/style may overlap with commercial offerings (I'm steering clear of what they should be doing and their worth for another post).
So this post seeks to PRAISE the uniqueness and the quality content of the BBC. What is ironic is that its best quality content and uniqueness have come most often from those niche bits that appeal to (relatively) limited audiences, but which mostly deserve better promotion and publicity.
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