BBC radio cuts send wrong signal
DEAR Editor, The cuts announced on Monday to BBC Local Radio England are decidedly a strategic move in the wrong direction.
I fully understand the financial pressure the BBC is under – with the licence fee frozen again and with the World Service, over 75s free licences and the Welsh language subsidy to S4C all having been shifted from the Government to the BBC in recent years.
However, with the future of its public funding uncertain – Charter renewal is only five years away – surely it would make sense for the BBC to widen the gap between what it does and what its competitors are unwilling to do?
Local radio and regional television have been under much pressure in the last 20 years or so, especially within the commercial sector.
Many independent local radio stations have merged with larger conglomerates and now broadcast mostly syndicated programmes from London, with a minimum of talk and local news.
Rather than cutting back on local radio provision in England to the extent outlined this week, the licence fee would more easily be defended by a BBC that is filling a gap that streamers and large corporations simply cannot or will not fill.
By reducing its differentials is the BBC taking its eye off its publicly funded future?
Let’s hope not, for no matter what we might think about its perceived bias, its favouritism and sometimes its sheer obstinacy, the BBC is the driver of quality broadcasting for both content and technical standards.
Without it, these standards will suffer across the commercial spectrum.
The BBC enables the United Kingdom to exert far more soft power in the world than most of us realise.
Besides, having seen some of the finer detail this week, the proposals for BBC local radio are confusing.
For instance, on Saturday and Sunday lunchtime, Radio WM will merge across the entire West Midlands with 4 other stations, but Radio Manchester will remain as a standalone station.
Radio Stoke will merge with the East Midlands stations on weekday afternoons but with the West Midlands at night.
And if all stations remain standalone in the morning, why not apply the same principle through the afternoon drivetime? It’s all a bit of a mess.
Apparently it has not been decided where the all-England programme from 10pm to midnight will come from.
I would remind the BBC that the Midlands is at the heart of England and no other region shares so many borders with all other parts of England – not even London. But before we start to scramble for crumbs from their table, I would urge the BBC to reconsider its position.
Mike Bradley Campaign for Regional Broadcasting
Midlands.