Well according to the spineless hacks carrying out Murdoch’s orders at The Times, the BBC plan to axe the online station BBC 6 Music as part of a drive to improve quality over quantity at the organization. There are several problems with this as far as I can see, which I will attempt to lay out for you here.
Firstly BBC 6 Music is currently the best internet radio station I am aware of, where else can you hear presenters as wide ranging as Jarvis Cocker, Craig Charles, Huey Morgan and Adam and Joe all in the same weekend?
Secondly the music they play isn’t for all tastes, but it is definately justified and when compared to other BBC stations’ the output is refreshingly different. To shut that off would effectively end its exposure as no commercial radio would dare be that bold for fear of losing ad revenue.
And thirdly and perhaps most importantly, this is a motivated purely by insatiable greed as David Bancroft writes:
“This article is originally from THE TIMES. It isn’t true, it is Murdoch running up a flag to see who salutes. Internet news is the future, and the BBC is better at it than News Corp.”
Murdoch has been out to get the BBC for a while now, obviously it riles him to have a publically financed company as the only real major competition for his own News Corp. In fact the BBC puts his pisspoor operation in the shade with it’s transparency, value for money and general reporting. Murdoch’s papers are sensationalist at best and just plain celebrity idolizing soft porn at worst yet this man is afforded more control over our media than any one person should have. And he then has the gall to press his boy to call for the breakup of the BBC.
I leave you with a quote from ThisIsAFix from The Guardian website:
“Damn you Murdoch – nothing you have done in your life has improved the quality of anyone’s life on this planet other than your own. You are truly the epitome of Thatcher and the Neo Con vision for the world; a culturally ignorant morass of obedient, dumbed down consumers willing to pay massive subscriptions for piss poor media.”