Andrew's diary

Tuesday, 02 March 2010

Feels like a Monday. Three day weekends are great - except when the BBC confirms the rumours about its "strategic review": goodbye 6music and 25% of the Online budget!

So, I'll join the mass of people complaining about 6music getting the axe - it's a regular feature on our hifi at the weekend and the Craig Charles Funk and Soul Show is perfect for Saturday nights without the TV on. If the problem is one of budget and reproducing what commercial radio stations do (and so unfairly competing by using the BBC's position of power); kill Radio 1. Who'd miss it? What value does Radio 1 add that commercial radio stations don't?

Even more worrying though, are the 25% budget cut to BBC Online. As Adrian Hon points out, 25% cuts to radio or television would be outrageous, so why's it OK for the BBC's Internet services? I appreciated it at university (H2G2 et al) and Mel taught me its value as an educational resource after graduation. Now, with two young children, the thought of losing so much of the BBC website fills me with terror. It's a fantastic resource for educational content; commercial educational software companies (at the low end, at least) complain about the BBC using its position of power to cripple them. But what's more important, maintaining a false industry at the low ends of the educational software market or the education, for free, of the nation's young?

Things I'm quite happy to pay my BBC licence fee for:

• BBC's national and international news (on radio, TV and online);
• Radio programmes like Today; I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue; Just A Minute - hell, all of Radio 4;
• TV programmes like QI, Doctor Who, Survivors, Have I Got News for You, Top Gear;
• CBeebies and CBBC on TV and online;
• BBC Learning online;
• BBC 6music;
• BBC 7 and BBC Radio 2 (even when I'm not listening to them, I like that they're there).