The BBC itself reports:
Cornwall MP Julia Goldsworthy says the BBC should consider scrapping Radio 1.
The Lib Dem communities spokeswoman was responding in a BBC3 debate, First Time Voters’ Question Time, about the BBC’s strategic review…
But Ms Goldsworthy said: “They should be looking at other areas where there is already competition in the market, like Radio 1.”
You can read the full report here.
UPDATE: As discussed in the comments below and confirmed by Julia herself, the BBC story is not an accurate reflection of her views.
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20 Comments
That would be a good start.
No! No! No! No! No!
I don’t think she really said that explicitly at all, this is terrible reporting. Within the context of the debate it sounded more like a suggestion that they should be examining the mainstream areas where the market already competes rather than trimming niches off the BBC.
RKRSmith: have you seen any other report with the broader context that you could point me at?
Mark, you can download First Time Voters’ Question Time from iPlayer using get_iplayer or similar 🙂
This clearly isn’t what she said, or the point she was making. She was just referring to rationale for closing 6/Asian Network.
Anyone know how to tackle this sort of thing, quickly? She’s in a marginal with a bunch of disgruntled folks over expenses; need to get this removed asap.
If she didn’t make this point, is there not still a point to to be made?
Why do we need a state funded popular music station when there are numerous independent popular music stations?
Doesn’t Radio 1 does much more than mainstream popular stuff. i thought some programmes have quite a bit of overlap with what is on Radio6
(Or am I just horribly out of touch – only listen to R5L – and Rock 106Fm when in Manchester) 🙂
Hey Antony,
Possibly, but this is a general election campaign, you don’t need any more bullshit quotes flying around. She already has the rocking chair to deal with, which takes about 5 minutes to straighten out, if the next 5 minutes are spent explaining why she doesn’t really want to scrap Radio 1 people will lose interest. It won’t be carefully explained or argued by the Tories, they’ll just tell people “your MP wants to scrap Radio 1, we would never do that because we love the BBC”, which is a populist viewpoint that they need not believe in order to state.
I think this applies to a lot of things – 2 months before a general election probably isn’t the best time for deep discourse (or revealing your tax status); we’ve had 4 years for that and (hopefully) party policy won’t be changing before the election. Now is the time to sell policies to the people, and AFAIK BBC bashing is not in the manifesto.
For what it’s worth, RKRSmith’s take on my comments is exactly the point I was trying to make (and thought I had for that matter)
Thanks for clarifying that Julia. I’ll make the update clearer.
Krz,
I’m not convinced the people wouldn’t actually like debate to be at least a bit deeper. But if you want to keep it simple,
“Sell Radio 1 and cut the national debt to prevent cuts elsewhere such as to school and hospitals” is simple.
If you’re worried about misrepresentation by other parties, get over it. Whatever policy you have there is scope for misrepresentation. It goes with politics that keeps things as simple as possible.
“the BBC story is not an accurate reflection of her views”- so please change the LDV headline to something like “Julia Goldsworthy falsely accused of calling for BBC to scrap Radio 1”.
Cutting 10% off the budget of Radio 1, however, would probably cover the cost of 6 AND the Asian Network. Though personally I’m more concerned about cuts to the BBC web sites.
“Sell Radio 1 and cut the national debt to prevent cuts elsewhere such as to school and hospitals”
First of all, Radio 1 is funded by the Licence Fee, not general taxation like schools and hospitals so a saving on one does not create extra money for another.
Secondly, Radio 1 is not the same as commercial music radio, and anyone who listens to them could tell you. Commercial radio playlists are for sale. If you pay them they will play your record. And because there are only 4 companies that control 90% of UK commercial radio and all their so-called local stations play the same programmes, that means commercial stations have become homogenised suppliers of a very few songs major record labels want us to buy. Radio 1 is not like that, it chooses its own music, plays a much wider variety and often employs DJs who actually like the music.
There seems to be a blindness among some anti-BBC/anti-Licence Fee people over just how substandard the output from commercial broadcasters is. Given how risk-averse and commercialised the for-profit sector is WITH a major public service operatorbin the market, imagine how staid and unbearable it would become if left to its own devices.
Awesome. The first halfway sensible and interesting utterance from a Lib Dems in weeks, and it wasn’t what she meant to say!
I agree with Iain. If the BBC is looking to cut down in size then Radio 1 is exactly where it should start, not important niche products like 6/Asian Network.
The BBC can’t be all about just providing niche products like 6Music and Asian Network it has to produce widely popular services as well or else people will start resenting the license fee as they can say the BBC doesn’t make anything mainstream.
In my opinion the license fee is morally indefensible whatever the circumstances, but I find the funding of culturally worthy and otherwise commercial unviable channels a whole lot less offensive in principle than the funding of 100% commercial pap that could, would and should be provided just as adequately by private stations. Radio 1 is the absolute embodyment of everything that’s wrong with the BBC, which is quite an achievment.
Benjamin,
The point is you sell Radio 1 and put the proceeds of the sale into the national revenue for those other public services.
Ben,
Furthermore, if you are right that Radio 1 is a unique music service then presumably it’s millions of listeners will continue to support it, might even want to buy shares in it, and it will continue?