A commercial view

Excellent think piece by Steve Orchard, who, in a long commercial radio career, has had a hand in GWR, Classic FM, Capital Radio and Planet Rock. Found in The Drum; here's an extract - whole thing worth a look.

6 Music’s budget of £9m is so much bigger than anything in the commercial radio sector, but even it is dwarfed by the staggering £90m that it costs to run Radios 1 and 2. Our sector’s beef has been with the commercialisation of these two giants not the bijou 6 Music.

Commercial radio can never replicate 6 Music’s cultural value – it’s not viable for us to do so. The commercial landscape has featured many fine rock music stations that have never made any real money – over time we water them down and gently shepherd them back towards the traditional commercial heartland. We will gain nothing from this closure yet the music industry will lose much.