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Radio 1 to cut live music output to meet budget demands
By Chris Cooke | Published on Friday 20 March 2015
Radio 1 is set to make some big cuts in its live music output as the BBC pop station seeks to meet budget demands caused by the freezing of the licence fee in 2010.
But don’t worry, it’s unlikely to stop the BBC station pretending to be a festival promoter with its Big Weekend and a telly station with it’s iPlayer channel, it’ll only affect Radio 1’s unique commitment to providing live session opportunities within specialist shows and coverage of an eclectic range of third-party concerts and festivals. So, phew.
BBC overseers the BBC Trust have approved the cuts, which will see the number of sessions recorded by the station reduced from 250 to 160 a year, and the number of live events covered cut from 25 to ten. Good times.
The cutbacks were revealed in a BBC Trust review of all of the Corporation’s music radio stations, which was generally positive about the services, though Radio 2 was told to do more to attract black, Asian and ethnic minority listeners (who are much less likely to currently tune in). Elsewhere, Radio 1 was told to do more to promote its social action content during daytime, while the Asian Network will get a quota to protect news output.
