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Radcliffe & Maconie 6Music Show Creatively Stifled At Birth
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BBC commissioning document for their show has just been posted online
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/radio/network/docs/6music_radcliffe2011.pdf
Apparently only ONE freeplay per hour. So any hopes of Mark and Stuart bringing to bear their long standing experience and joy of many, many kinds of music will be curtailed by the essentially just link to the same A/B playlist and playout oldies as every other 6Music weekday show. So more R1 breakfast mornings, rather than Out On Blue Six or The Freak Zone. Or even the R2 evening show.
Bloody tragic.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/commissioning/radio/network/docs/6music_radcliffe2011.pdf
Apparently only ONE freeplay per hour. So any hopes of Mark and Stuart bringing to bear their long standing experience and joy of many, many kinds of music will be curtailed by the essentially just link to the same A/B playlist and playout oldies as every other 6Music weekday show. So more R1 breakfast mornings, rather than Out On Blue Six or The Freak Zone. Or even the R2 evening show.
Bloody tragic.
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Comments
Anyone expecting the freewheeling attitude of Mark’s R1 or R2 evening shows will be very disappointed.
What do you think one freeplay per hour means?
It's time 6 Music stopped being a DS untouchable and got the criticism it deserves. It's a good station but it could be so much better if the BBC let it off the leash.
The level of regulation at the BBC is largely a result of the Ross/Brand debacle.
Thank the Daily Mail and it's idiot readership...
Nothing to do with 6Music’s daytime musical output. That was changed for the worse when Lesley Douglas took a hands on approach, the number of tracks of the playlist was significantly reduced (hence more repetition), improved slightly last year (when the closure was announced) as the DJ’s didn’t give a damn, and now appears to be enforced with a rod of iron.
Not on this occasion it isn't. Having read through the document I do agree that it can seem like an unnecessary load of red tape. However, if you think it's too prescriptive perhaps you'd like to compare it with the world of commercial radio formats.
In reality, I predict the finished on air product will sound much more relaxed than it looks on paper. Both R&M and their new production company will be able to work together to evolve the show.
As for just one freeplay per hour, a station like 6 Music - which has significantly grown its audience - will still have a much wider playlist than Radios 1 or 2.
A/B/C playlists are NOT the complete playlist. What you see on the website is a selection of what you'll hear, not necessarily an exhaustive list.
Yes it is.
All BBC productions now have an increased amount of red tape thanks to the Ross/Brand nonsense... you can clearly see it in evidence in this document.
Tip/iceberg.
Regarding the playlist, it's perfectly normal for national network programme to be playlisted. Mark and Lard famously had only one 'freeplay' per hour... there was nowt wrong with that show.
Oh believe me, it is (plus the database playout system for oldies). There's people on FB willing to commit acts of wanton violence if they ever hear certain tracks by Florence and The Machine, Mumford and Sons or, lately the Vaccines, ever again.
Marc and Lard were great as presenters, irrespective of the hour. But their disdain for much of the stuff they played in the afternoons was clear. The evening show had no such restrictions of course.
My point was that the format of the show (which appears to be the subject of this thread) is nothing to do with Ross/Brand.
Even prior to that, it was commonplace for outside production companies working within the BBC to complete mandatory courses on Editorial Guidelines, health and safety, data protection and so on.
I'm afraid if you believe that for one second you're being incredibly naive.
'9 across, colour of the rainbow and appalling, vacuous, talentless boy band... four letters. Any ideas Lard'?
'Erm, no, can't help you there'.
'I'm no good at these crossword things... anyway, here's Blue.'.
The point I was replying to was more general:
Originally Posted by Inkblot :
That document explains a lot. A station that's supposed to be eclectic, spontaneous and at the cutting edge of modern music but is hamstrung by a bureaucracy that insists on regulating every last inch of its output.
I was simply pointing out that it's not 'The BBC' that insists on regulating every last inch of it's output... you have the idiots who kicked up a shit storm to thank for that.
The very fact that pitch document is even in the public domain is a result of Ross/Brand.
Are you seriously implying that it didn't change much at BBC network radio.. or indeed across the BBC?
Did you listen to it? I never heard a record on that show which was on the Radio 1 Playlist at the time. Unless Bruno Brookes was playing the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Cake and I missed them?
BBC popular radio stations are schizophrenic. They throw a big red switch at 7 o'clock, all the 'suits' depart, and the DJ's actually play records they personally like, heaven forbid.
I've no problem with Radio 1 and Radio 2 having a fairly rigid playlist structure. They're pop and entertainment stations aimed at an audience who want familiar background music they know and love. But the whole point of saving 6Music (and I was up to by neck in that campaign), the overwhelming thrust of the argument, was that it was different from other stations, BBC or commercial and presented a more considered look at non chart, 'alt' music. At the moment a lot of the daytime track list can just as well be found on XFM, Absolute or Radio 1 & 2, and being different means taking risks - such as assuming your audience have an attention span of more than fifteen minutes and really don't need to hear the same tracks on every daytime show.
For the life of me I cannot see why they're employing erudite, tremendously knowledgeable presenters like R&M just to serve them the same old tracks from the playout database. Might as well employ a couple of monkeys.
The Ross/Brand incident did change the BBC for sure. I know plenty of people who work at the BBC & they tell me that those two idiots (their words) have made everyone elses job a lot harder.
Ross/Brand were too blame for this, not The Daily Mail who only reported the incident. Sure folks who hadn't heard it got upset & quite rightly so. We can't hear or see everything.
Expect R & M to sound much as normal.
That's a ridiculous notion.
Ross and Brand are professional idiots, you can't blame them... It's their job. The angry mob of Daily Mail readers on the other hand, are mere amateurs... amateur, idiot, scum.
They screwed the BBC out of sheer hate for the organisation... Now, no doubt, they'll be complaining about it being an over-regulated dinosaur.
Back on topic (one of my favourite chocolate bars), although r&c will be playlisted, they will also be able to influence the playlist... If they can be arsed.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ybxcv#synopsis
- where is the rigid restrictive playlist that the original poster fears?
But have you read the document linked in the first post? It dissects the show down to the bones, with instructions on when a session track must be played, when another session track must be played, when there should be a chat with the next presenter and so on. This is what I dislike about 6, and I appreciate others like it, but to me it sounds over-produced and planned down to the fine details. It needs rougher edges. Maybe Radcliffe and Maconie are the right presenters to roughen the edges but going by that document they'll have their work cut out.