Saturday, March 06, 2010

Radio WM dropping some or all music

It's not just 6Music and the Asian Network that are being mucked about with at the moment. BBC Local radio is also having one of its periodic 'being tugged about from the centre' upheavals.

The Stirrer has claimed that Radio WM is about to drop music altogether, although the Birmingham-based station's controller Keith Beech says not quite:

Beech said, “Since Helen Boaden became head of news we have become much more focussed on news, and if you look at what’s happened to Phil Upton’s [breakfast] show, that’s gone all speech until 9.30.

“Local radio is going back to its roots, but we’ve seen this coming, so we’re in a good place to respond to the strategic review.

“We’re ahead of the game”.

To be fair, much of the music played on the BBC local stations performs the function of the jam in an Arctic Roll - sticking things together without providing much distinctive flavour - but there are a couple of specialist shows on WM. Most notably, there's the West Midlands variant of Introducing - and if 6Music is to die, let's hope the regions can keep their couple of hours supporting new music alive, at least.


2 comments:

Stuart Davis said...

Not to mention a superb Soul and Motown show every Saturday night.. That would be a big loss...

PeterD said...

There is a great Gospel show on Sundays, also a fantastic reggae show, Saturdays you get Janice Longs show, all good. I dont listen to much radio in the car, but I do listen to WM. I also think their sports coverage is the best in the midlands too, perhaps that is what they are making way for, that would be unfortunate if that was the case.

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