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BBC needs to tread carefully when celebrating big commercial record releases, says commercial radio sector
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 3 December 2013
So, pop quiz, what do Coldplay, U2 and Gary Barlow all have in common? Other than tediousness of course? Well, the BBC’s (over) promotion of all three act’s respective album launches has pissed off the commercial radio sector, that’s what.
Yes, having come in for criticism in the past for going over board in its celebration of there being new records coming out from Coldplay and U2 (to the point that the Beeb was accused of basically giving the two band’s labels loads of free advertising at the licence fee payer’s expense), the BBC is now being criticised for have just a little bit too much Gary Barlow on its channels around the recent release of the Take That dullard’s new long playing cassette ‘Since I Saw You Last’.
To be fair, Barlow’s presence on the Beeb while doing the promo junket for his new record hasn’t quite been on the level of the air time given over to U2’s ‘No Line On The Horizon’ in 2009, which the Corporation itself later admitted breached its own editorial guidelines. Though he has had bookings on Radio 2’s Ken Bruce, Steve Wright, Chris Evans and Simon Mayo shows, as well as appearances on ‘Children In Need’, ‘The One Show’, ‘Breakfast’, a recording of a gig at the BBC Radio Theatre and an ‘Ask Gary’ sesh on BBC online.
Although not getting involved in direct criticism of the Barlow, Matt Payton of the commercial radio sector’s RadioCentre told The Times this week that the Corporation needs to be careful about the level of support it gives big commercial acts with records to sell, saying: “The BBC overstepped the mark previously, with its promotion of acts like Coldplay and U2. We hope that the BBC Trust will be watching closely to ensure that this sort of undue prominence doesn’t occur again”.
