6Music: Leading the fight or losing its way?

On the 11th March 2002, the BBC launched its first new national music station in 32 years. That station was BBC6 Music, and with it came a slogan: “Closer To The Music That Matters”. The station was to be a sister station to Radio Two, and was supposed to provide an alternative to the more mainstream, youth orientated Radio One. Often featuring archive recordings from the BBC’s extensive collection, or championing new talent in live sessions, many saw the station as carrying on the tradition of the great, sadly missed John Peel. The stations reputation quickly grew, with presenters who were consider knowledgeable in their field, be it funk, reggae, indie rock or ska. As it approaches it’s 6th Birthday listening figures are at a record high, showing an increase of 110,000 year on year. As digital radio receivers become cheaper, these figures look set to continue to rise. Yet beneath the surface, it appears all is not well with the station.

In late 2007 6Music was embroiled in the BBC’s competition rigging scandal when it emerged that producers had played the role of competition winners on Liz Kershaw’s show. It was later revealed that there were problems with quizzes on Tom Robinson and Clare McDonnell’s shows as well. As a result of this the stations head of programming, Ric Blaxhill resigned his post. His position is yet to be filled and leaves the station in the hands of Lesley Douglas, the controller of both Radio 2 and 6Music. Many questions have been raised about Douglas, not least the question of why one person should be able to control two stations. Douglas has already proved to be a controversial figure, appointing Chris Evans to the drive-time on BBC 2 in 2006 and her equally controversial decision to give comedian and Big Brother presenter Russell Brand his own 6Music show in March 2006 before catapulting him over to BBC 2 in November of the same year. Many of her appointments have been high profile ‘celebrity’ disc jockeys, seemingly moving away from the knowledgeable remit of 6Music and moving towards a ‘dumbed down’ station that Radio Four’s own ‘Feedback’ programme dubbed “Radio One and a half”. The shifting of emphasis to celebrity should not come as a surprise from Douglas, who seems to rely on established celebrity to boost ratings, rather than bringing people through from the grass roots (it was she who purchased ‘Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hour’, and who brought in Brad Pitt to voice a documentary on Nick Drake). It is one of her most recent appointments, however, that has become a pressure point for Douglas, and has seen listeners moved to bombard the BBC’s messageboards, create petitions and generally cause discomfort to the BBC’s top brass, drawing attention from the likes of the Media Guardian and various online publications in the process. The person in question? George Lamb.

Before embarking on his media career, George Lamb had been a manager of both Audio Bullys and a fledgling Lily Allen. Since deciding a media career was more his style, Lamb has quickly grown into a presenting phenomenon, appearing on television on TMF, E4, as the host of ‘Celebrity Scissorhands’ and reality show “The Restaurant” on BBC2. Like fellow Lesley Douglas appointees Shaun Keavney, Nemone, Dermot O’Leary and Russell Brand, Lamb is represented by the John Noel Agency (the agency who deals with Big Brother related minor celebrities, and also with the Friday Night Project. It is also worth noting that Noel’s son Nik Linnen also represents Douglas appointees Queens of Noize). Even regular ‘stand in’ presenter, comedian Alan Carr, is part of the Noel stable. When asked for an explanation as to why so many appointments had come from one agency, and whether Lesley Douglas has any link with the John Noel Agency, the BBC did not respond.

It has also become apparent that Douglas has been using 6music to ‘groom’ her talent for the higher listenership and more mainstream content of Radio Two. First Russell Brand was given a show on 6Music, only to jump ship to Radio Two months later. Both Shaun Keavney and Nemone have also been filling an ‘understudy’ role at 6Music’s sister station. It has been suggested that George Lamb will also shortly be ‘acting up’ also, either to Radio Two or Radio One, with many suggesting he is being groomed to fill the large gap that will be left when Chris Moyles hangs up the microphone on the stations flagship Breakfast show. The increasing use of 6Music to act as a breeding ground for the BBC’s other music channels has led to the channel losing its sense of identity. The station no longer seems to provide the educated, informed, music related commentary that it had become known for. The replacement of Gideon Coe with George Lamb seems to have been the final straw for many listeners.

Lamb brought with him to the mid-morning slot a ‘posse’ of friends, not seen since the dark days of DLT. Gone was the knowledgeable, music based chat, to be replaced with inane banter, catchphrases and features about who is, or isn’t, wearing the right ‘clobber’. Although the quality of the guest artists has remained the same, Lamb comes across at a loss, either through too little research or merely being out of his depth as an interviewer. After one ‘catastrophic’ interview with Super Furry Animals, the internet began to simmer with dissent about Lamb’s show. By November 2007 there was already a Facebook group dedicated to the dislike of Lamb’s show. Message boards began ringing with criticism of Lamb’s style as “sub-Whiley “Wow, that’s amazing” and sub-Moyles “Aren’t these people idiots”, describing the show as “Heat or Nuts on the Radio”. It was also observed that Lamb’s show seemed to consist of more chat and ‘features’ than music. The underlying feeling in all these comments is that Lamb will undoubtedly be a success elsewhere, but that he does not fit within 6Music’s remit. Still, the show goes on, and Lamb continues to rise heckles. The 6Music website has been so besieged by criticism of Lamb that moderators were forced to consolidate all the criticism of Lamb into one group, stating: “We will not tolerate people being rude or offensive about any of our presenters.” Tellingly the first response to this posting was “will you still tolerate any ‘rude and offensive’ presenters?” As the listeners campaign continues, other media have begun to cover the story, with Media Guardian running coverage of the campaign. Lamb’s show, meanwhile, has started hosting “Cravat Wednesdays” and asking it’s audience questions such as “who would win a fight: Chuck Norris or a Honey Badger?” A new dictionary of “Lamby’s Lingo” was added to the BBC website, to enable the listeners to decipher the ‘banter’ on the show. This dictionary features explanations for such ‘choice’ phrases as: ‘wafty’, ‘wackola’, and most tellingly ‘New’, which in Lamb’s lingo is a “ derogative term for something insignificant.”

A petition started at www.getlambout.org.uk claimed that Lamb’s show stood “ against what we believed 6Music stood for — i.e. quality broadcasting, cutting edge music, insightful interviews and knowledge of music… hope that this isn’t an indication of where 6Music is headed in the future.” A brief glance at Lamb’s BBC website, which fails to mention music once on it’s homepage, favouring instead subjects such as ‘Estate Olympics’ and downloadable catchphrases for your mobile phone, is enough to make you question whether the show is fulfilling the 6Music remit. In early February 2008, the anti-Lamb petition hit 1000 signatories. In the same week station controller Lesley Douglas appeared on Feedback, Radio 4’s version of ‘Points of View’, to defend the station against accusations of ‘dumbing down’ in order to chase ratings, with George Lamb’s show in particular a subject of discussion. Sadly, as always seems to be the way, Douglas was on the defensive, claiming “Developing a new show is always going to take a long time. We have received positive and negative comments about it. I don’t think I have ever launched a new show when that has not been the case.” However, what followed this defensive statement may well prove to be just as provocative as Lamb himself.

During the interview, Douglas claimed that in employing Lamb she was trying to redress the gender balance of the station, and to try and make it as open to female listeners as it is to male. Claiming that “Men tend to be more interested in the intellectual side of the music, the tracks, where albums have been made, that sort of thing”, where as women connect more with the emotional side of music, Douglas seemed to suggest that by changing the way in which it talks about music the station would be able to attract more female listeners. The appointment of Lamb, and his nods to fashion and celebrity gossip is a part of this process it seems. Unsurprisingly, Douglas’ use of casual gender stereotyping has caused uproar amongst the very people the interview was supposed to placate- in fact, if anything, it has increased the pressure on 6Music. Once again the BBC’s message boards are awash with criticism for the station. A typical example from the ‘Feedback’ message board reads: “Lesley Douglas is way out of touch with 6 music listeners. I am an avid music listener and am appalled that she assumes females aren’t interested in the minutiae of music and all things related to music… Daytime radio on 6Music is pretty much unbearable at the moment, George Lamb being the most moronic presenter to date.”

If Douglas is really trying to attract more women, it appears going for the ‘celebrity’ market and the 90’s lad style of George Lamb simply isn’t going to cut it with her existing audience. Perhaps it would benefit Douglas to cast her eye over the 6Music messageboards and see the suggestions that her supposed target market are making; if you want to attract female listeners, find some intelligent female presenters, and put them on at times when people can actually listen. It would also seem that the listeners don’t care if it is a man or a woman, as long as they provide a good mixture of music and a minimum of ‘chat’. After all, the stations tagline is ‘Closer to the Music that matters’, not ‘closer to the gossip’.

Sadly it looks like Lesley Douglas will be taking no heed of the complaints of her listeners. A recent interview with The Independent on Sunday seems to suggest that 6Music will continue down the celebrity path. During the interview, Douglas sited the appointment of Russell Brand as the turning point of the station claiming “people started to think it could be more than ‘music experts’”. It also seems that Douglas will continue to rely on pre existing celebrity, rather than encouraging new talent to the station, claiming the only change she would make to the 6Music line up would be to bring in Never Mind The Buzzcocks host Simon Amstell. Despite all the criticism of recent months, it looks likely that Lesley Douglas will continue to move 6Music away from its roots as a station of music for music’s sake ,and that the station will become yet another Radio 2: A station that favours celebrity over broadcasting talent, and comedians over people with a passion for music.