Radio 6 Music saved after fans and stars take on BBC
BBC station 6 Music was saved today following a campaign by music stars and hundreds of thousands of fans.
Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC Trust, said bosses had failed to make a convincing case for closure and warned a "much bigger debate" was needed on digital radio plans.
The corporation had previously said the channel should be axed as part of a strategy rethink, sparking protests backed by Lily Allen, Jarvis Cocker and Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis.
The publicity generated helped boost the digital station's audience from an average 600,000 listeners a week to more than a million.
Fans flocked to a Facebook campaign and millions of tweets were sent tagged "save6music". Lauren Laverne, one of the channel's presenters, expressed delight on her Twitter feed, saying: "6 Music has been saved. Hooooorrrayyyyy!"
La Roux singer Elly Jackson said she was "extremely excited", telling Radio 5 Live: "You always feel slightly ignored, like the individual can't have any affect on these things, but when things like this happen, you think maybe we can."
Sir Michael said: "After further analysis, taking account of those audience reactions, also having discussed this with the radio industry, our view is that you cannot take the decision to close 6 Music until you've made progress in reshaping the big services of Radio 1 and Radio 2, and that you've got a proper and coherent digital strategy.
"It has opened up a much bigger debate about the need to sort out the greater distinctiveness [of] Radios 1 and 2, and to make sure they are more different from each other and different from what's available in the commercial sector."
He warned that the BBC could not develop a coherent strategy for digital radio "in isolation", saying the corporation "needs to do [that] with government and the commercial sector."
The BBC Trust criticised aspects of BBC1, saying it should be "more ambitious and distinctive, in particular by increasing the variety of programming in pre-watershed peak time, and showing greater creative and editorial ambition at 9pm."
Meanwhile, BBC2 needed to become "a clearer alternative to BBC1, even at the risk of reaching fewer viewers". It claimed both channels were "not meeting audience expectations" during the daytime.
There was bad new for Asian Network, the other digital radio station the corporation intended to turn off. The trust said it was "performing poorly" and there was a "case for closure".
Today's announcement came as the BBC published its annual report. Updated salary figures emerged: in 2009/10, a total of £52.2 million was spent on salaries above £150,000, down from £54.4 million in 2008/09.
