War (What Is It Good For)?

Books from 1939

I spent the afternoon at the Imperial War Museum, one of London’s many fantastic free museums, which gave me an opportunity for some picture-taking.  I was surprised at quite how large it was although this did lead to some amusing phone conversations when people got lost:

“Where are you?”

“I’m in World War One.”

“Oh, I’m in the Holocaust.”

“Well you better get out of there, I’ll meet you in the trenches.”

The World Wars One & Two exhibitions in the basement were huge (and at times confusing to navigate – especially World War Two) but it was interesting how much information they had and what made it come alive were some of the smaller things such as propaganda flyers, newspaper headlines etc.  What my history teacher would have called primary evidence.

Gas Mask from WWII

In fact the Holocaust Exhibit was probably the most impressive part of the museum, although after a while it did become a bit overpowering.  There is a large scale model of Auschwitz, which I didn’t spend anytime looking at, it just made my skin crawl. The rest of the exhibit though was incredibly detailed and in-depth.

I once went to the Pinkas Synagogue in Prague where the Jews that had been killed from Bohemia region (some 80,000) had had their name inscribed on the walls.  They were big walls and there were a lot of names which filled them. This brought home the holocaust to me and the scale and impact.  No museum or textbook or film has ever come close to standing in that room surrounded by name after name after name.

The one thing that really struck me from the Imperial War Museum today was from a video of talking heads, which was really beautiful, with all these concentration camp survivors sharing their stories and experiences. One Jewish woman stood out more than the others for me.  She was talking about  the experiences she had suffered and whether they had informed her personality and the way she interacted with the world today.  She said (and I paraphrase slightly):

“It is as when you throw a stone into a lake.  At first there are large ripples where the stone breaks the surface and these become smaller ripples as time passes and then, eventually, the surface of the lake becomes calm again and flat.  But the stone still lies at the bottom of the lake and that stone remains in my heart.”

This is the news from the BBC

I like the BBC, I think it is a great institution although it is spending far too much time defending itself against inflated and nonsense media storms that the genuine public don’t care about.  However, I do not understand the rationale behind the BBC decision to axe 6 Music and the Asian Network.  Both stations have had considerable investment to set up and now cost about 9M a year to run.  Audience figures are not huge but then, they are only available on DAB radio and who actually owns a DAB radio?  Previously I listened to 6 Music online and they clearly have very defined target audience demographics and are working well in delivering to them.  I have not listened to the Asian Network as I am not their demographic but there are enough people up in arms to defend the station that would suggest it is valued out there.

I can’t imagine that £18M is much of a drop in the ocean of the overall BBC budget and it would seem a very obvious argument that these radio stations are providing something that commercial radio does not.  Commercial radio has had plenty of time to provide music lovers of the rock/alt rock variety something interesting, in depth and eclectic but has failed to do so.  It is far easier to drive advert sales (the real point behind commercial radio) when playing the latest hits and profiling your playlist to that of a young mother at home with her small child.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just that this is the main format that commercial radio tends to take in this country.  It would appear radio is slightly healthier in the US, where there are more formats divided by music taste or age groups, although this still leaves out any real eclecticism in playlists (although my heart does still belong to KCRW).

There has been plenty of people unhappy with the decision and most have similar arguments to the above, even the BPI and AIM have written a letter of criticism on the closures.

The real and brave decision that should have been made by the BBC is to axe Radio 1.  Upwards of £45M a year is budgeted for this station.  Apart from the irritation I feel when the radio stations presenters are sent off to Glastonbury or Ibiza on licence payers expense (it’s a radio station – you can be in the studio in London and have a live feed!  I don’t need Chris Moyles to be in Ibiza (other than to feel as far away from him as possible), it makes no difference to the programme being broadcast and is costing more than it needs) Radio 1 does nothing that a commercial station wouldn’t or doesn’t do.

The Radio 1 playlist for example tends to make or break a record in this country and therefore sets the taste of the nation in commercial pop which filters down to commercial radio and in turn shapes their playlists.  Take Radio 1 away and you would end up with commercial radio stations having to decide for themselves what people want to hear and not having to compete with a nationwide UK radio station.  The likelihood is that this would lead to higher listening figures across the board for commercial radio (with all those Radio 1 listeners having to choose a commercial station instead) but likely to fragment the market with no one player setting the lead.  This would probably create stations playing different ranges of music.  However, this may lead to more choice across the airways, with commercial radio stations seeking niche markets rather than a big as reach as possible.  It would expose more music to the public and perhaps, eventually, this could come full circle leaving no need for a place like 6 Music because the commercial world is providing a similar offering.

Just a thought.