Radio London cuts off Prodnose to spite its face

It's something of a semi-regular occurrence in British broadcasting: a Danny Baker show exploding in flames as yet another management team decide they can do without him.

The BBC seems convinced that Baker is going to carry on doing his 94.9 London show until Christmas; the programme that went out today didn't suggest that would be the case.

As ever, MediaGuardian misses the point:

In a diatribe reminiscent of Dave Lee Travis's live resignation from Radio 1 in 1993, Baker told listeners: "The show's been cancelled by the BBC. They don't want this any more.

"It's a dirty rotten shame and a rotten way they did it. Nobody phoned me. Apparently they were planning on getting round to telling me. I don't want to go, I make no bones about it."

In what way was Baker's show like DLT's "changes are being made" bit? That's a bit like comparing a magnificent march towards the fire with a petulant toddler, isn't it?

You hesitate to quote a Stephen Fry twit, but on this one he's right. The BBC are dickwits.

Click. Off. Zune.

Microsoft's belated attempt to have some of that iPod pie has been put out its misery, with the Zune ceasing to exist as a stand-alone music player.

Dead, and never launched in Europe. You've perhaps got to admire Microsoft's tenacity in keeping the product line alive through five long, lonely years; the name will live on - for now - as a store brand for selling music to the tiny Windows Phone market, and the more substantial Xbox community.

For now, though; It looks Redmond is planning to introduce another name for its multimedia services in the longer term. Ventura. For when offences against nature calls.

Radio 2 cuts Radcliffe & Maconie by a quarter

With 6Music being led towards the hospice, the BBC keeps telling listeners not to worry, because they'll be well-served by other pop music programming elsewhere on the BBC.

And, to be fair, while losing Marc Riley's four nights a week of new music, old music and sessions - well, Radio 2 does have a slightly more mainstream version of the same thing in Radcliffe And Maconie, doesn't it?

Oh, hang on, maybe not:

Radcliffe and Maconie's award-winning weeknight show, which has been running on Radio 2 since 2007, will be cut from four to three nights a week.

Their Thursday night outing will be replaced with a new live music strand, In Concert, which previously aired on Radio 1.

Oh, bloody hell. Still, I expect Radcliffe & Maconie listeners are tip-top for the commercial network demographic - right, Caroline Thomson?

Lily Allen: Are we still near enough new year for this to be 'dropped quietly in the festive period'?

There is, naturally, less surprise at the confirmation that BBC three isn't bothering with a second series of Lily Allen and Friends than there was at their pretence that they were recommissioning. Danny Cohen is now looking for something to fill the gap in the schedule. As if there was a hole left by not having awkward chat with uncomfortable looking minor celebrities linked together with film of donkeys having sex culled from YouTube.

BBC axe Christmas

Or, at least, they've decided there won't be a Christmas Top of The Pops this year. The official line is that it hasn't earned it, baby:

Top of the Pops was decommissioned in 2006 after 42 years on the air.

"We said at that time the Christmas Special would continue but would have to earn its place every year," said a BBC spokesman.

"This year it was felt that pop music would be better represented over Christmas by an eight-part series of TOTP2 that will reflect some of the year's key hits and possibly the Christmas Number One."

The spokesperson then looked stern and said that anyone who thinks they can just waltz in to a place on the Christmas schedule should think again, before pointing and screeching "I'm talking to you, Lizzie Windsor. No More Orphans."

MTV frees up valuable programming space for more shows about people having parties

MTV is axing its remaining flagship music show in the US: the mighty TRL is coming off after ten years this November.

Christian faith

We thought giving Chris Moyles a chatshow was odd. We thought sacking him and replacing him with the notoriously mirth-free Christian O'Connell rather like taking off the handbrake in order to swap for a giant parachute-brake instead.

We seem to have been right.

U2 charity ego-wank pulled

That big Aids gig featuring U2, um, Macy Gray and... oh, Shaggy has been axed because "the proposed producers could not come to a satisfactory agreement with the [Nelson Mandela Foundation]." Dammit, Mandela never caused all these problems when they did the Free Nelson Mandela gigs, did he? Seriously, we don't know what the problems were, but we're guessing that it may have come down to problems with the arrangements to ensure Bono's massive sense of self-satisfaction was properly shaded from the cruel sun of South Africa.

Here is the injury... do you want an insult with that?

Useless waste of space Chris Moyles has had his TFI Clone show on Five axed. He's being replaced by former Juice FM breakfast corpse Christian O'Connell. O'Connell, who's since gone on to X-FM (presumably to avoid the station challenging parent company Capital's Chris Tarrant at Breakfast) will presumably be doing much the same thing, but at a quarter of the cost.