BBC cuts

Subject: BBC cuts and Folk shows
From: Mark Dowding
Date: 10 Oct 11 - 07:10 PM

It looks like the BBC cuts will affect the regional programming which means bad news for Genevieve Tudor's Sunday Folk on BBC Radio Shropshire (and the other stations that take it) and any other local folk music programmes such as BBC Radio Merseyside's long running Folkscene with Geoff Speed and Stan Ambrose and also The Drift on BBC Radio Lancashire with Phil Brown (I use those examples as they are my regional stations but I'm sure there are other folk programmes in other parts of the country that will be affected.)

The proposal by the 'Delivering Quality First' group is that regional programmes after 7-00pm will be merged into one national programme. This of course sounds the death knell of all the local shows - not just folk.

We've been here before with BBC Radio Manchester and BBC Radio Derby as individual stations have made changes to their schedules and dropped shows but this looks like the thin end of the wedge for the demise of "local" radio altogether.

More information about the proposed cuts at the BBC HERE

The DQF part of the BBC site is HERE

The mailing address is:
Delivering Quality First
BBC Trust
180 Great Portland Street
London W1W 5QZ
and the phone number for enquiries 0800 068 0116

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:10 AM

As one might expect, the BBC seem to be missing the point. I am sure we can all think of many ways to cut expenditure without sacrificing what the BBC must consider to be programmes of "minority" interest.

Personally, I would start with programmes which consist mainly of "playing records at people". With certain exceptions in the specialist music field, this type of programme is adequately catered for in the commercial sector.

I would then look at outdoor news broadcasting which consists of a presenter standing outside a building where something happened some hours ago but at which nothing is now going on. How many times have we seen someone standing outside a hospital where someone died earlier in the day - lots of people die in hospitals and we don't need to see what one looks like!

As a third example, why, when the BBC have spent so much on studio space, do they need to spend more money on sending a presenter, a producer, a cameraperson, a sound engineer and the inevitable floozy with a clipboard et.al. to some event out in the sticks? All they're doing is presenting the weather but at what cost?

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 10:58 AM

Just consider this. The BBC is moving its entire Sports department (Radio and TV) to a brand new centre in Salford (that's near Manchester!) Several hundred people and their families being re-located....Now pray tell me where next years Olympic games are happening....Yep...London mainly! The cost??? about 50 years of Gens programme.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 11:20 AM

I also think the first port of call should be slashing the obscene fees some of the celebrity presenters on radio and TV are paid. If you have to make cuts, start by looking at the really, really expensive stuff...

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Ian Hendrie
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 12:44 PM

I totally agree with Ray about presenters standing outside buildings. What a complete waste of money. And as for the obscene sums paid to some 'celebrity' presenters whose only talent is for saelf-promotion it beggars belief. I would have thought that local programmes were cheap in comparison.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 01:22 PM

BBC Local Radio was set up as part of the Governments "Cold War" programme... Have a hub of transmitters that circumvented the major cities, so that If the shit went down, there would be a way to communicate to the public... (A bit like an analogue version of the WWW)
Local Radio has now become redundant, and will be axed. Not needed anymore...Hey! We've got Facebook!...

"Strictly Come Dancing" and the "X Factor" are the future....Why do I feel sad?

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,glueman
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 02:10 PM

The centralisation of broadcasting in London has been an absurdity for decades and there is absolutely no requirement for it with current technology. The move to the regions hasn't come a moment too soon.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: BTNG
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 02:13 PM

The days of London-centric anything are long due to be done away with

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Clive Pownceby
Date: 11 Oct 11 - 04:43 PM

I'm familiar with the shows n' stations Mark details in his opening post. Radio Merseyside is my nearest broadcaster and I've been 'on air' myself many times there over the years. Speaking with Stan Ambrose and Spencer Leigh, - the latter doing many specialist music series and presentations over many years, it would seem that they are fearful of the axe. It's all been building for some time hasn't it, and I wonder whether all the petitions, letters and calls can halt things now? Worth a try though huh?

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 05:59 AM

Sadly, most organisations told to lose £100,000 off the personnel budget tend to sack 5 people on £20,000 rather than one top brass on £100,000 (especially in HR. HR departments seem to use staff cuts as an excuse to expand because of the extra work making people redundant!).


RtS

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: banjoman
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 06:09 AM

It always amazes me when the BBC send more than one person to cover a story. EG "Now over to our correspondent in ??" who then does a short bit followed by "Our reporter ... has the details" This is then follwed by the regional programmes where a local reporter is covering the same story. This is probably in addition to coverage by national and local radio.
Room for cuts?? How about stopping paying vast sums of money to obscene pratts like Jonathon Ross (I know he's gone but there are others.)

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Ralphie
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 07:05 AM

2 points.
HR (Human Resources) We used to call that department HD (Human Disasters)
Secondly. Nothing wrong with regional/local broadcasting. Jolly good. But, spending millions of pounds re-locating the entire sport output to Manchester, a year before the Olympics in London in 2012 is just bonkers. Just imagine what the hotel costs will be.
20 odd years ago, they moved the bi-weekly music recording sessions of the BBC Big Band from Maida Vale to Pebble Mill in Birmingham. The fact that all the band members lived in Surrey didn't seem to matter. Added to the fact that they were mainly freelance players and worked in the evening on the top West End shows, Cats, Starlight Express etc.
Schlepping 60 musos up to Brum and back twice a week seemed a bit stupid. Did the tunes recorded have a Brummy accent? Was it a waste of money? Discuss.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,FloraG
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 09:11 AM

My pet hate is the way we get news and mens sport. Very sexist. Not just the BBC though.

Many years ago the folk programme on BBC radio 2 used to go to folk clubs. They would record the main artist and interview him/her but often they were out performed by some of the floor singers. I wish they would go back to that format.
FloraG.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Max Johnson
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 10:17 AM

I take your point, Ralphie, it is bonkers spelled BBC.
But, if they thought that it might encourage more shows such as Cats, Starlight, etc to base in the Midlands and the North then that would be a good thing.

Admittedly, a) they didn't actually think that, and b) the tourists who queue up for those shows never set foot outside London anyway.

But still.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: GUEST,Folkie Fiona
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 12:31 PM

Let's cut to the chase. The only way you'll save local radio folk programmes is if enough of us convince the BBC Trust and managers that folk is a minority interest which reflects local communities that can't be served by just having Mike Hardin on Radio 2 with his clutch of the big name artists' CDs. The folk clubs need the events guides and talk ups that they do. Artists need local platforms to nurture them into the wider world, and even the big names need more exposure than just one play on Mike H. That queue is going to get a lot longer if you kill off BBC Local Radio shows like The Drift, Durbervilles, Guiniveve etc.... There is a SMALL chance that these shows could be taken up by more stations if the management can be convinced that they are part of diversity, a unique reflection of Englishness and other such buzz words.

What can we do?
1/Listen to the folk shows regularly...all of them! use the i-player to listen to those not in your patch. The more hits they get the more popular they are seen to be.

2/Contact the BBC Trust with your views. Those links again:

http://consultations.external.bbc.co.uk/bbc/dqf/.

And the mailing address is:
Delivering Quality First
BBC Trust
180 Great Portland Street
London W1W 5QZ

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Stower
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 01:58 PM

Here's an email I just sent to [e-mail] which gives the arguments against cutting folk as I see it:

I am appalled to hear that the BBC is planning to cut Genevieve Tudor's local folk programme as part of the DGF budget cuts. Much of the musical output that Radio Shropshire offers is no different to what one can hear on any popular national radio station. I was under the impression that the BBC wanted to especially retain in its local broadcasting what is truly local. In cutting Sunday Folk you will be cutting Genevieve's distinctive local guests, local topics of conversation and the local aspect of her play list. Her programme is, in other words, irreplaceable by anything national radio offers which, by any account, has the most paltry amount of folk music as it is.

Please stay true to the brief of local radio and keep Genevieve Tudor's Sunday Folk.

Subject: RE: BBC cuts
From: Bernard
Date: 12 Oct 11 - 03:13 PM

When Ali O'Brien and I were informed of BBC GMR's decision to remove 'specialist music programming' from their schedule (now BBC Radio Manchester once more), the Station Manager, John Ryan, made a disturbing, and probably ill-considered remark... 'Community Radio stations can do a better job of it than the BBC'...!!??

Mind you, we're on Oldham Community Radio 99.7fm these days, and find the environment to be far more warm and friendly than it ever did at the Beeb - and our 'Listen Again' feature is available for months rather than just one week!