6Music: Planet Rock offers berth to Bruce Dickinson

I mentioned in the comments how the decision to axe Bruce Dickinson's rock show from 6Music looks a little fishy. In terms of the 6Music playlist, it's an outlier, and presumably brings in a different audience. So, if you were looking for a way to reduce a station's reach figures, in order to help justify closing the network, axing such a programme would make sense.

There's good news for the fans of the show, though: Mark Bluemel is hoping to bring Dickinson to Planet Rock.

So, does this at least prove the two Thompson's claims that closing 6Music is a good thing for the commercial radio sector?

Erm... no:

Bluemel, who rescued Planet Rock after its former owner GCap Media said it was going to close the station, said he was "disappointed" at the prospect of 6 Music's demise.

"It's not a good thing for digital radio to have it close," said Bluemel, whose station has an average weekly reach of 698,000 listeners, marginally ahead of 6 Music, which had 695,000 in the last three months of 2009.

He does complain about the costs of the station:

[H]e described the station's annual budget of £9m in 2008-2009, including £6.5m on content, as "ridiculous".

"We could run the station on a quarter of that budget. There is no reason to kill 6 Music. They should just kill some of the cost. It is a ridiculous amount of money to run a station that size," Bluemel said.

Well, yes. If you're primarily playing records and have a few presenters, you could run the station for a lot less. But a couple of sessions every day, presenters operating out of at least two cities, a dedicated news operation... if you cut the 6Music budget to the level of Planet Rock, you'd wind up with a totally different station.