A peaceful protest has taken place outside Broadcasting House on Saturday lunchtime, to help save BBC 6 Music.
Reports suggest anything between 500 and 2000 people were in attendance, with Liz Kershaw kicking things off with a speech about how the BBC Trust could still save the station
Station-playlisted bands Allo Darlin', Mirrorkicks and The Brute Chorus entertained the crowds during the 90 minute event.
The organisers said, “6 Music promotes new, old and unsigned music and is unequalled by any commercial station. The DJs play music they love for people who love music. This is why we must save it.”
RadioToday.co.uk was at the event and spoke to one of the organisers of the protest, Georgina Rodgers, and asked her what she thought of Mark Thompson's decision to axe 6 Music:
[i]It's been a platform for a lot of my friends who are musicians who wouldn't otherwise get played anywhere else. Also, it's a radio station I love listening to. I was also angry about the number of jobs that could be lost directly at the BBC and indirectly in the music industry.[/i]
[b]How do you think the closure will affect listeners up and down the country?[/b]
[i]It's a great loss. BBC 6 Music is like a friend to us that we've invited into our homes. These DJs are voices that we're all very familiar with and for that to be lost would be tragic. From the amount of people that have turned up today, it's very obvious that a lot of people are very angry and sad about it.[/i]
[b]Why do you think they're picking on 6 Music to cut costs?[/b]
[i]The BBC thought it would be an easy target because it's a smaller radio station. They say it's a niche radio station, which I don't necessarily agree with. I think they might have just thought it was easy because it has fewer listeners than Radio 1 and Radio 2.[/i]
[b]What do you hope to achieve from this protest?[/b]
[i]What I wanted to do, when I suggested that we have a protest outside Broadcasting House, is to bring the web campaign on Facebook into the real world. I think it's very easy to say, "Yes, I'll join this group on Facebook", (and 170,000 people have done that), but today, I think a couple thousand people turned up to vote with their feet and say: "Yeah, we're angry about this.. we're not happy about it. We're very passionate about this radio station".[/i]
[b]Do you think this protest will really make any difference?[/b]
[i]I hope the BBC will take notice of this campaign. I'm a teacher and I'm a member of my union, and I know that union action and protests like this often make a difference. From the media coverage we're getting from it, I think we'll get our voices heard. Hopefully they'll react on that in a positive way.[/i]
[b]What's your response to today's turnout of supporters?[/b]
[i]It's been amazing. Everybody's been so positive. We've had many volunteers to do the marshalling, and we've had people turn up from all over the country: we've had people from Manchester and people from Scotland come show their support.[/i]