BBC Trust agrees to kill the distinctiveness of Radio 1

Radio 1. What makes it difference from commercial radio, and - come to that - from streaming stuff over Spotify?

It'd be the live music and the sessions. There's something you can point at and say, there's something that proves the value in having a station like that, funded by licence fee.

The BBC Trust agree.

Except, they don't agree enough to protect that part of the service:

BBC Radio 1 is to make dramatic cuts to its live music output, with the number of sessions by pop and rock bands dropping from 250 to 160 per year.

The station will also reduce the number of live events it covers from 25 to 10.

The BBC Trust has agreed to the changes, despite audience research showing "that live music is seen as a key strength of Radio 1".

"Yes, you're very good at what you do. Play some more records instead, eh, that's cheaper."

The BBC Trust is chaired, you'll recall, by Rona Fairhead, who seems to be bringing the same sure touch she shows at her other job at HSBC to the work she's doing at the BBC.

What else is in the Trust findings? Well...

Radio 1 and 1Xtra's roles supporting musicians and djs with career advice is now mainly going to be picked up BBC Introducing - a change which reflects what's been happening anyway;

Radio 1 and 1Xtra will share more documentaries; 1Xtra's requirement for 20% speech programming has been dropped as a result (although the worry is that 'repeating Radio 1 documentaries' isn't the same sort of thing as creating the crafted speech programmes it has been doing.);

1Xtra can now do dj mixes instead of club nights;

Radio 2 will no longer have to do 'readings' as part of its remit, on the grounds that who knew Radio 2 had to do readings?, but it still "should" do readings. That's clear, yeah?

The need for "regular" comedy programmes on Radio 2 has been watered down to just "comedy programmes";

6Music comes off largely untouched, although the previous target of "15% of concerts and session from archives" is turned into a more easy to track "Broadcast at least 6,500 concert tracks or sessions from the BBC’s music archive each year, with at least 1,150 in daytime". You might wonder why, if the Trust wants to see 6Music using the BBC Archive so widely, it's just signed off on proposals to limit the size at which that archive grows in the same sodding document;

Radio 3 has to do more jazz;

and less drama;

and Asian Network has to provide at least 24 hours of news and current affairs every week. Not clear if this includes sticking Five Live on overnight.

The worst thing in these new rules is that Radio 1 is going to mostly cutback the sessions and live music out of the mainstream; it's a double blow to distinctiveness.

Tom Watson pushes for 6 on FM

It's great that Tom Watson is such a strong supporter of 6Music, but his calls for the BBC to move the network to FM, booting Radio 3 to digital only, are flawed:

Watson said: “It does strike me if the Radio 3 audience continues to diminish and 6 Music continues to grow its audience, the BBC should seriously consider it, they must put it on their agenda.

“6 Music is a huge success story for the BBC. They tried to close it down and its audience doubled, they now have more listeners digitally than Radio 3 has got on both digital and the FM network.

“On those terms 6 Music should be knocking at the door for that FM slot and they would have an even bigger audience [on FM]. There are a lot of discriminating music listeners out there, they have built a very powerful brand and a strong offer. They only way they are going to expand is getting an FM slot and I think it’s worth the BBC considering.”

Maybe worth considering, but much more worth rejecting.

Part of the original reason for the existence of 6Music was to help drive digital listening - something that it's done rather well. Moving it across to analogue wouldn't really help with that.

Given there's a hope that the FM and AM radiospace can be handed over to other services in the not-too-distant future, any tenancy on FM would be short-lived anyway.

The idea that 6 can only grow by transferring to FM is flawed, given that it's still growing its audience on digital.

And then there's the question of what would happen to Radio 3 if it shifted to digital-only. It already has a fragile audience; even if you generously assume that half its listeners transfer across to find it - and that we can put up with the resultant drone of audiophiles complaining about sound quality on DAB forever - that low level of audience would appear to be incompatible with the current level of funding Radio 3 receives. So while Tom Watson might say he's not calling for Radio 3 to be closed down, that would effectively be the effect of moving it across before we're at the stage of analogue radio switch-off. (How it will thrive after that, of course, is another question.)

Rajars: two key moments

Two key things from the latest round of Rajar audience figures.

First, Chris Evans is now pulling the largest-ever radio audience (this century, at least), with 9.91 million. (This isn't at the expense of Grimshaw, either, as the Radio 1 breakfast show has started to grow an audience, too).

Second: 6Music now has more listeners than Radio 3. Not bad for a network that was supposed to be nothing more than a trivia question by now.

Factsmackdown: Is Radio 3 more expensive than BBC Three?

With BBC Three the latest service from the corporation to be led to the knackers' yard, there's a little campaign growing to close Radio 3 instead, on the basis that it has a smaller audience and is pretty expensive, too.

Is that fair?

Well, BBC Three costs £121.7million a year; BBC Radio 3, £54.3million. So if you're looking for a cost-saving measure, the TV station potentially saves more.

And if you take into account that Radio 3 has to support orchestras and the Proms out of its budget, while BBC Three is spending a chunk buying not-as-good-as-King-Of-The-Hill American cartoons, you might start to look at the value for money proposition here slightly differently. (I know, it's unfair to put the Late Junction sessions up against Seth MacFarlane and ask 'where would YOU spend the money', but that's pretty much what the 'close Radio 3 instead' campaign is doing already.)

Ah, but Radio 3 is enjoyed by far fewer people than BBC Three. (Judging by letters to Feedback and the Radio Times, Radio 3 might not actually be enjoyed by anyone.)

So, who is more expensively serviced?

Radio 3's annual £54.3m is spent pleasing an audience 2.2 million. That's £24.60 a person.

BBC Three's annual £121.7m brings delight to 13.2million. That's £9.21 a person.

On this measure, BBC Three is much, much cheaper.

Okay, classical music heads, I can hear you murmuring that a large chunk of that BBC Three audience is just tuning in for the EastEnders repeat.

And that 13.2million suggests that a portion of the audience tuning in are from outside the slice of 'young people who otherwise would be having sex or doing computer games or doing computer games in which they pretend to be having sex' that the channle is supposedly targeting.

But, on the broad measure of happy person per pound, BBC Three is much better value than Radio 3.

Game over?

Not quite. Because a Radio 3 listener listens for six hours and 25 minutes a week; a BBC Three viewer only watches for one hour 47 minutes every week.

Multiply this up over the course of a year, and you get BBC Three costing 0.17p per minute of audience engagement.

BBC Radio 3 costs 0.12p per minute of audience engagement.

In other words, the two channels, arguably at different ends of the BBC waterfront cost roughly the same, and it's peanuts, but depending on when you want to stop doing division you could argue that either is more expensive.

[Sources: About the BBC audience information, January-March 2013; BBC Annual Report expenditure 2013]

Kershaw's back

Here's a piece of really good news: Andy Kershaw back on the radio:

Kershaw said: "I am thrilled to be back on Radio 3 working again with a team of bright, imaginative, enthusiastic, people who also happen to be dear friends."

It sounds like he's sorted himself out - the Guardian describes him as reborn - so hopefully this is a first step back to having him home. We're waiting for a Loudon Wainwright III session.

BPI condemns 6Music closure

The BPI has joined the people who don't want to see 6Music shuttered - how strange to be on the same side as them, eh? They've issued a formal protest:

The BPI, which represents the UK's music companies, said the proposed shutdown "defies belief" in a draft submission to the BBC Trust.

It added that closing 6 Music goes against the central tenets of the BBC's Royal Charter, which requires it to "stimulate creativity and cultural excellence".

Of course, the BPI does have a financial interest in the BBC keeping a radio station which plays phonographs, but that doesn't make it wrong. In this case.

The Association of Independent Music has also submitted a statement of its concerns:

In a separate submission to the BBC Trust, the Association of Independent Music (Aim) says 6 Music plays a "pivotal" role developing new musical talent and says the arguments for closing it are "inherently perverse", according to Music Week.

Aim says 6 Music is better value for money than Radio 3, which serves a niche audience of classical music enthusiasts, claiming that it costs significantly less per listener than its BBC sister station.

That's not entirely helpful - comparing Radio 3 with 6Music is a bit like comparing the running costs of a symphony orchestra with those of a bar with a jukebox, and you don't really need to pull down Radio 3 to justify keeping 6Music. Late Junction is no less important, or over-resourced, than Lauren Laverne's show.

Radiobit: Charlie Gillett

Sad news for fans of radio tonight, as we hear of the death of Charlie Gillett.

Born in Lancashire and growing up in Cleveland, Gillett was perhaps one of the first genuine rock and roll intellectuals - he wrote a thesis on the history of rock and roll during his time at Columbia University. Admittedly, this was in 1965 so there wasn't quite so much history of the genre, but he certainly kept his knowledge up to date and could have turned in a thesis at any time since then.

After he got back to the UK, he worked as a lecturer and a journalist, skimming through New Society and Anarchy before landing a spot with Record Mirror. A book, the Sound Of The City, confirmed that he was able to wear his rock learning lightly enough to appeal to a wider audience, and rock writing led to rock talking when Radio London offered him a weekly show. Honky Tonk would run for six years, introducing Londoners to Costello, Graham Parker and Dire Straits. You can't blame him for what Dire Straits went on to do. Nobody knew.

Working at a time when commercial radio actually behaved in the way the Tories seem to think that it still does, Gillett jumped from the BBC to Capital, where he would remain - literally due to public demand - until 1990. It was in 1983 that his show's focus spread to include what would be known as world music, but at the time was still just music. Then it was back to the BBC in London, which was going by the name of GLR at the time, along with shows on the World Service and Radio 3. He picked up the Lifetime Achievement at the Sonys in 1991 - when his radio career had only reached the half-way point, as it turned out.

He also found time to co-found a publishing company, Oval, and co-manage the pre-Blockheads Ian Dury. And, in his role as musical consultant to advertising agencies, played a role in helping Levis choose the tracks which briefly made them, and Nick Kamen, insanely popular.

Rocks Back Pages has a collection of Gillett's columns from Record Mirror.

Charlie Gillett had been suffering from a disease which had attacked his autoimmune system. He was 68.

Twittergem: Radio 3

Cai,14, young ranter at #r3thinking in gateshead says - I believe popstars should be abolished as they are talentless and overpaid

- from Radio 3's Twitterstream.

Gordon in the morning: When entertainers clash

Having made himself look a bit stupid by running a "Moyles to leave Radio One" story that wasn't entirely true, it looks like we're now in for a period of fighting between two men who do their best to turn morning entertainment into a tiresome round of self-obsession.

So it is that Moyles getting the Sony Bronze prize in the Best Breakfast Show category is portrayed this morning not as a near-miss, but as some sort of horrific snub:

I just wanna mock DJ

And the loudmouth DJ can now add a new, glittering honour to his CV... he hosts the third best breakfast show in the country.

A new jingle must be in order for that landmark achievement?

The lardy Leeds host was the biggest casualty on a bad night for the station at the Sony Radio Academy Awards.

I'm sure it's frustrating to miss out on a prize, but it's hardly mocking someone to put them on a shortlist, is it?

Mind you, Smart doesn't really know much about radio at all:

UK Station Of The Year went to stuffy BBC Radio 3 ahead of their young, cool neighbours. [Radio 1]

Radio 3? Stuffy? And you really think that Scott Mills and Vernon Kaye are cooler than Verity Sharp and Fiona Talkington? Seriously, Gordon?

Still, this isn't really about radio, is it?

Chris seems to think I have it in for him.

I’m more worried about the way my poached eggs are cooked at Sun HQ every morning.

Ha! Dissed you, Moyles. Like, Gordon couldn't care less about you. He's more worried about his breakfast than your breakfast show. Although, oddly, Smart isn't running obsessive knocking copy about his eggs whenever he gets a chance.

In another part of Smart's obsessions, Liam Gallagher has been thinking about solo records:

Talking in Brazil during the group’s world tour LIAM said: “If everyone starts going off doing solo records then you might as well just split the band up, know what I mean?”

Yes, yes, it sounds good in theory, but it just means we'd end up with five useless records instead of one.

Maybe four. There might still be some hope that Andy Bell has a bit of something left about him.

Kershaw canned by the BBC - again

Today's On The Ropes was to have seen John Humphrys talking to Andy Kershaw. It never happened though, despite there even being a PIP page set up and the programme being trailed.

That summary is interesting, actually:

Andy has enjoyed a highly successful broadcasting career, winning a brace of Sony Radio awards and receiving critical acclaim for his reports from Rwanda, Angola, Haiti and Iraq. However, his outspoken opinions led to him being dropped by Radio One; he openly attacked Bob Geldof over his stance on Africa and in 2007 his personal life began to suffer.

Outspoke opinions led to him being dropped by Radio One? Really? At the time, he might not have gone quietly and had tussled with the network, but it seemed to be more about kicking him out the schedules to make way for more dance DJs. Although I guess that wouldn't really have fitted with the narrative of the programme.

It's a moot point now, anyway, as the programme isn't going to go out. Indeed, the interview was hoiked at the last moment. Mark Damazer appeared at the Radio 4 window to blog an explanation:

It is not often that we remove a programme from the schedule at short notice.

The 'On The Ropes' we had hoped to broadcast this morning in the end did not work. We were mindful of the background and, in particular, the strained domestic circumstances surrounding the break-up of Andy Kershaw's long-term relationship and the legal order, the result of which makes it very difficult for him to have significant access to his children.

We had hoped that we could explore the events leading to his personal and professional crisis and his subsequent efforts to recover while bearing in mind the interests of other parties and providing them with the appropriate degree of privacy. In the end that was not possible. The programme was recorded and edited close to the day of transmission - hence the lateness of the decision.

You have to wonder a little about what went on behind the scenes - was it really impossible to edit the programme leaving out the privacy questions? And if the sheer weight of potentially legally dubious material would have made the interview unsalvageable, any decent production team would have known that long before it got to trailing stage, no matter how late the final cut is delivered.

A lot of people are choosing to call conspiracy, suggesting this is another example of the BBC kicking Andy - although offering a platform to put his side of the story in the first place seems a curious way of going about that.

Commenters have been out in force, complaining...

I can only compare and contrast the way he has been discarded with the BBC's perpetual indulgence of the likes of Jonathan Ross, Chris Moyles et al, whose broadcasting talents are minimal compared to Kershaw's.

This seems to be hugely unfair to Radio 3, in particular, which left the door open for Kershaw's return - unless the complainants think that Kershaw should have been able to continue to broadcast while he was inside, or while he was too ill to do so, or while he was on the run from the police? And, however bad Chris Moyles behaviour might be, it's unlikely the BBC would allow his show to go out if it was going to raise privacy issues for a former partner or children. It's spectacular misfire to compare someone who oversteps the bounds of taste and deceny with a person whose life has fallen apart rendering them incapable, temporarily, of holding down any regular job.

Something to listen to: Bill Drummond

If you haven't heard it yet, there's still five days or so to enjoy Bill Drummond's lecture and question-and-answer session [RealAudio link; expires Thursday evening] from this year's Free Thinking festival in Liverpool.

Drummond races through the history of recorded music and technology, and suggests that in the future, musicians will want to make music for a place and time. He does, however, also admit that quite often he doesn't think things through before putting them into practice.

Kershaw: Not so good

After the positive-sounding piece in the Mail, things seemed to be on the up for Andy Kershaw.

Then we read the interview in the Mirror, where he still sounded incredibly angry and life-tainting bitter about his experiences.

This morning, he's back in jail after another suspected breach of his restraining order.

Terrible news.

Kershaw out of jail; in the Mail

Andy Kershaw's release from jail was heralded in the Daily Mail, somewhat surprisingly:

How I survived force-nine gales, vermin and spaghetti hoops in prison, by Andy Kershaw

By Andy Kershaw? Really?

Erm... not quite - let's look at that headline again, but this time with byline attached:

How I survived force-nine gales, vermin and spaghetti hoops in prison, by Andy Kershaw
By LIZ KERSHAW

Although, to be fair, once you get past Liz's preamble, there is a lengthy extract of Andy's prison's diaries; they sound positive and good-humoured:

I also had a letter from Terry Waite, whom I've never met, offering his "every assistance, if it's not too impertinent to say so".

A very kind officer then lent me the Archbishop of Canterbury's special envoy's autobiography and it put into perspective the triviality of my own situation.

I wrote back to thank him and pointed out that at some point I was tramping the streets of Beirut while he was chained to a radiator.

The bugger didn't walk the streets of Douglas for me.

Andy expresses the hope that he'll be back on Radio 3 soon - let's hope that's the case; we've been missing him.

Kershaw in custody

Andy Kershaw is inside again, after he admitted breaching bail conditions. He had been due in court next week following charges over a breach of a restraining order.

Kershaw: The door is left open

During the past few weeks, while Lucy Duran had been sitting in for Andy Kershaw, and before it all went public, the Kershaw page at Radio 3 had been left untouched. Now, though, with Charlie Gillett taking on the Monday night slot, he's appearing in the listings as Andy Kershaw With Charlie Gillett (although it's a sit-in, not a double act) and the tracklists are turning up on the Kershaw page. It's as clear an offer of "come back when you're able" as you could hope for.

Kershaw: I've lost everything

Andy Kershaw has pleaded guilty to breaching a restraining order and drink-driving; the court has adjourned sentencing until October 19th for reports.

Speaking outside the court, Mr Kershaw said: "I've lost my kids, I've lost the woman I love, I've lost everything. I just want peace and quiet."

Still, it's fair to say that his recent spell in custody has changed Andy - last January, he was calling for You and Yours to be axed, now, though, Gillian Reynolds reports:

Andy Kershaw even telephoned last week to say that listening to You and Yours while recently detained at Her Majesty's pleasure had been a revelation.

Kershaw's mum talks to the Mail

We wonder if, when Andy Kershaw's mum, Eileen, spoke to the Daily Mail she knew that her motherly concern would be embedded in such a spitefully worded piece as turned up in the paper.

Eileen talks like a worried mother:

"He desperately needs help and his mental state is now affecting his physical state."

"He has lost a shocking amount of weight and looks skeletal. He is a wreck and very disturbed. I am afraid of what he might do, especially if people give up on him.

"He simply will not accept the relationship with Juliette is over and is suffering from a broken heart.

"I never believed such a thing existed before - but that is exactly what has happened."

The Mail, however, sees the story more as a parable about pride coming before a fall - presumably Kershaw's politics making him ripe for a kicking, even when he's on the ground already:

Like so many who turn their backs on the big city, Andy Kershaw couldn't quite hide that hint of smugness whenever he spoke of his new life on the Isle of Man.

[...]
Today, the evocative picture he painted of Peel as a haven of open-door, crime-free, yob-free family life has been well and truly shattered. And it's largely his fault.

It's a desperately sad story; it's even sadder that the Mail felt unable to tell it without introducing an element of crowing.

Kershaw bailed

Andy Kershaw has been bailed on charges relating to the breaching of a restraining order; he's due back in court on the 18th September to answer the charges.

Duran takes on an air of permanence

Following yesterday's upsetting news about Andy Kershaw, the Radio 3 website appears to have promoted Lucy Duran to full-time host of the Monday night programme - even the Listen Again file has been renamed.

[Thanks to Martin W on Zapsmart]

Kershaw arrested near Peel

The somewhat protracted absence of Andy Kershaw from Radio 3 - there was some muttering about him being "unwell" but then Lucy Durans' stewardship of the Monday-night programme seemed to be turning into a permanent residency - might be getting a bit more protracted yet: he's been detained on the Isle of Man for allegedly breaching a restraining order designed to prevent him going near the home of his former partner, Juliette Banner.

Andy has been remanded in custody pending a hearing this Tuesday.