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Mu-Sly

Digital Audio Science

Unsigned artists and the future of the BBC : articles

Unsigned artists and the future of the BBC

Posted Tuesday 17th August 2004

The BBC's charter is coming up for government review over at http://www.bbc.co.uk/thefuture/ so I decided now would be a good time to let them know my thoughts, as follows:

There are thousands of very talented people writing music in the UK - most of whom have never been heard by anyone except their closest friends. As a national, British, public-owned broadcaster, you have the power to expose a whole wealth of unsigned British talent that is currently being entirely overlooked by the mainstream media in favour of commercial music.

You will certainly have no trouble finding people to send you their music - if anything, I suspect you will have the opposite, and may be flooded with music (both amazing and awful) that will take you a long time to review. May I suggest that as a matter of importance, as a service to the British public, you dedicate at least one two-hour evening show per week on Radio 1 to playing nothing but unsigned British music?

This will have several positive effects:

1. Since you are keen to "build public value", this will encourage actual participation from members of the public, in the form of sending you their music. Perhaps you could even let members of the public run the show each week - reviewing the music and doing the presenting?

2. It will help expose a whole new generation of unsigned artists to their potential marketplace, and will stimulate further growth in the grass roots of British music.

3. It will diversify the music that the public is exposed to as a whole, allowing non-mainstream artists to get into the charts and achieve the success many of them deserve.

4. The demand for new music will have a knock-on effect across the board, since if the public are better able to control what they can and can't listen to, the more commercial-driven stations will also experience demand for new British acts, thus taking the unsigned British talent and turning it into a commercially viable product.

As a public service, you are free from the constraints of always having to do that which is most commercially sponsored (eg. the playing of commercial music), so therefore you have every reason to support the public who are paying for your very existence. Support us by giving us the platform, OUR platform, to get ourselves heard in the closed marketplace that is the modern music industry.

Let the British people, not large corporations, be in the driving seat about the music that is played on their public radio stations - at least for two hours a week!

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