Today Twitter and Facebook are buzzing with responses to the news that the BBC is rumoured to be closing down its 6 Music station. Although the corporation has said nothing to confirm the move, it was lead story in The Times this morning and apparently has already sparked a bidding war with Absolute Radio the frontrunner to buy the station.
The move to close 6 Music is part of a plan that has allegedly been proposed by the BBC hierarchy to rein in some of the corporation’s activities. Other potential changes include halving the size of the BBC website and introducing a cap on the amount of money the BBC can spend on sport. As The Times suggested this morning the BBC’s management is clearly hoping that buy making cuts now it can avoid what many media watchers are predicting will be much deeper cuts after the next general election.
It is however the possible mothballing of 6 Music that has sparked the greatest amount of online activity. Jon Morter, the man who masterminded the Rage Against the Machine Christmas #1 campaign, has now established a new Facebook campaign called “Save BBC 6 Music”. Inspired by recent pronouncements about the possible demise of the station it has already picked up over 56,000 vocal members. By mid afternoon another 7000 people had joined the group.
Meanwhile on Twitter #BBC6music has been trending all day with comments like these
#BBC6music threatens commercial radio?? It can only be a good thing! When has there ever been a decent commercial radio station? #save6music
BBC continue to pay Wogan, fund garbage like ‘Total Wipeout’, ‘Strictly’ & Webers free publicity shows, yet threaten to cut #bbc6music. Huh?
Some tweeters are already sporting save 6 Music badges on their profile pics
So will this new campaign have the same impact and be able to help save BBC 6 Music?
From this juncture it is very hard to tell, but with this amount of activity inspired by what really is little more than a rumour at the moment, it is clear that BBC 6 Music fans are going to fight very hard using social media tools to save their station.
From using Twitter to source opinions for Radio Five Live phone ins through to its Facebook pages and blogs the BBC has worked hard to incorporate social media into online output. It’ll be interesting to see how responsive it is to a very vocal campaign that uses the same tools it already harnesses so effectively.
