Wednesday, 24 April 2024

What is the point of BBC Radio London if it doesn't give London musicians a platform?

 You, me and and George the dustman, who lives up the road, all pay the wages of the people who run the BBC. If you live in London and have a TV licence, you are a stakeholder in the organisation. The BBC is split into three main parts, TV, National Radio and Local Radio. In London, our station is BBC Radio London. During my life it has had various guises, including GLR, Radio London, BBC London Live 94.9 to name a few.  What does it do? Well this is what Wikpedia says

BBC Radio London is the BBC's local radio station serving Greater London.

It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Broadcasting House in Langham Place, London.

According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly audience of 548,000 listeners and a 0.9% share as of December 2023.

Local programming is produced and broadcast from the BBC's London studios.

During the station's downtime, BBC Radio London simulcasts overnight programming from BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC Radio Manchester.

The station's output is generally similar to that of other BBC local radio stations and targets a broad, mainstream audience. While previous incarnations of the station offered a more diverse range of programmes for London's various ethnic, religious, social and cultural communities, specialist programming now remains in a smaller form and is mostly broadcast at weekends.

What does this actually mean?  It means that there is a public service broadcaster, funded by all of us, with a misson to inform and entertain the people of London. London has several commercial stations. There is Capital Radio, which plays chart music. There is LBC, which runs phone in shows, often with rather provocative presenters, on both the left and right, who's mission is to give a platform for anyone who has a grumble. As such, I think it is fair to say that those areas are well served.

So what should be the USP of BBC Radio London? The current management had a revamp and massively increased the local sports coverage. They do this reasonably well, especially with the teams in League one and two, which don't normally get too much coverage. I have a bugbear that they do nothing on the lower non league teirs, where teams such as my team Hadley FC play in the Southern League Central Division.

They also brought in a few younger presenters, from more diverse backgrounds, Such as Salma El Wardarny and Shay Kuar Grewal, moving established presenters such as Robert Elms and Jo Good to the further reaches of the station. A big change at this time was a change to the way music was selected for the station. Previously presenters had pretty much carte blanche to play the music they felt appropriate for their audiences. Robert Elms was the first presenter to play Amy Winehouse and Gary Crowley, probably helped launch more bands than anyone over the course of his time on the station. Now it seems that an algorithm picks most of the music. On Robert Elms show, which is now Friday-Sunday, computer selected music sits jarringly within the show. Songs which form the playlist are played to death. Some of them, I quite liked the first time I heard them, but after the 20th time in a week, it gets rather wearing. That the music that is played is totally out of kilter with the audience is bad enough, but what really irks me is that Radio London should be giving airtime to good, upcoming bands from London. Music is a huge revenue generator for the UK PLC. The BBC, as a national institution, should be supporting up and coming UK musicians and helping them develop their careers. Local radio is the absolute perfect platform. Just about the only chance any up and coming band has to be heard is Jess Iszat's @BBCIntroducing slot. Whilst this is clearly a good thing, the bands featured get one or two plays on the radio if they are lucky. This is nowhere near enough to help build a profile. 

I was quite upset to see that despite having over 180K followers, the Twitter account for BBC Introducing last posted on the 8th April. It should be posting every day, signposting new bands and new music. As someone who runs a music studio, plays gigs at grassroots venues and does my best to seek out new music, I know for a fact that BBC Radio London is failing completely to do even the basics properly when it comes to music. A few weeks ago, I joined a network of Independent London musicians called Band Up. They put a shout out for bands to submit one or two spotify tracks for an independent play list. I submitted  The False Dots Sci Fi girls to the list. Within two weeks there was over 19 hours of music from up and coming London bands. Sure, not every track is wonderful, but some are absolute gems. You can check out the BandUp playlist here. Bandup also host gigs and play the list on random shuffle between bands. A few bands that I rather like on the list is the quirky Arctic Monkeys vibes of the Neversheds (great name), the semi psychedelic vibes of 1988 and the catchy popy vibes of November Now. We've pretty much had the list on rotation in studio reception, since then. As a studio, we feel it is important to give up and coming bands an airing. Wheras, when Robert Elms was on during the week, he'd regularly have new artists in the studio doing live sessions, promoting shows etc, that part of the content has gone completely. Gary Crowley gets an hour on Saturday lunchtime, not enough time for his talents. I like Eddie Nestor who nicked Robert Elms slot, but the music on his show is dire. Eddie should spend at least 30 minutes a day on London culture on his 10am-2pm slot and should be given free reign to play the music he likes, as well as up and coming artists of a suitable genre. 

In my household, the station has become a running joke. My kids ask me if Robert Elms and Eddie Nestor actually like the rubbish they are forced to play. As both know there onions, it is clear the answer is no. Just how bad the situation has become was brought home to me recenty. My band, The False Dots, released our new single We All Love A Party.  As we think it's a rather good tune, we employed a professional plugger to assist us. As the list of interviews came in, it was hilarious to see that whilst stations where presenters that have taste and latitude, such as Channel Radio and Truro Radio were delighted to give interviews and play the track, when I asked Steve the Plugger about BBC London, he just laughed and said "All they are interested in is there ****** playlist, which is picked by robots". 

Click for tickets

The single has been doing really well, it is ironic that it has made the playlists of radio stations in Brazil, but we cannot even get near a play in London. I wouldn't mind if great young bands were keeping us out, but when all we get is the likes of Lewis Capaldi and Beyonce on rotation, it is quite ridiculous. When band like us have gigs at iconic London venues, such as The Dublin Castle, with venues under massive pressure to survive, surely promoting a few London bands playing grassroots venues should be central to their mission. If someone at the station actually listened to the track and said "Sorry you are rubbish" that would be fine, but no one is interested in London music and bands.

I am not one of those fools who calls for the BBC to be defunded. I want it to be fixed. I want local radio to properly serve our local community and our culture. The organasation is obsessed with cost cutting, when it should be obsessed with brilliant content. I truly believe that if the BBC wants to fight off those calling for it to be broken up, they can only do it on the front foot, by demonstrating that they are essential to the cultural life of our country and that they are keeping us at the heart of world culture. 


Just for the record, these are all the stations in Brazil playing The False Dots.  How on earth can it be easier to get our friends in Brazil to play the band than our local station?




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