How The Archers might save 6Music

In a remarkable piece of transparency, Radio 4 has posted the exact words of explanation from continuity announcer Diana Speed about last night's mash-up with 6Music; a burst of The Undertones over the end of the 7pm news summary and over the start of The Archers.

R4 Network lost for 2'23" when 6MUSIC was transmitted on our six platforms on the Network Switcher. This was due to a mistake in monitoring when the Control Room did the switch for 6MUSIC from Western House to Manchester at 1900 and instead placed 6MUSIC on our output. I was unaware of loss of network because we monitor desk output in Con and that was going out as normal. Apology was made at the end of the programme.

So finger trouble (or something else) in the Control Room. They'll have to get better at it, with much more output switching between London and Salford next year. In all the media noise this has caused, there's no sign of outrage from Archers' fans - missing a good minute at the start doesn't seem to have been a problem. So Mark Thompson, 12, not 13, minutes of Archers a day in the future - and that should #save6music.