Victory is ours.
The BBC Trust has saved BBC 6 Music from closure.
That boiling hot day I spent in central London in May was not a futile middle class jolly after all. The people that mattered - the suits we were all sceptical about, actually took notice of us.
Four months of countless blogs and demonstrations paid off. I’d like to express my huge thanks to those who organised the relentless demos, notably 38 Degrees and love6music. You did a great job.
I suspect the whole ‘movement’ helped sway the BBC Trust, even those I’ll just click a button Facebook ‘petitions’ and Twitter posts, but clearly it was the intelligence of the argument, not just the passion which won through.
Those of us who completed the online strategy review questionnaire and also wrote directly to the BBC Trust must have overwhelmed the committee. Of nearly 50,000 responses to the BBC Strategy Review (which included the proposed axing of the Asian Network and some online services), 78% were related to 6music.
The BBC Trust said today:
"Throughout the period of our consultation we have received no evidence from the commercial radio sector to suggest that 6 Music represents any kind of threat either now or in the future, so long as it remains true to its distinctive remit."
This, of course, was the heart of our argument. By implication, the Trust has accepted that you simply wouldn’t hear anything remotely like 6 Music’s output anywhere else.
I’m not one for knee-jerk demands for resignations but I hope BBC Director General Mark Thompson is now reflecting on this saga. Recommending the closure of a strand of the BBC that is precisely what the BBC is about (it is a perfect fit for the BBC Charter) was so misguided.
Anger is misplaced today though.
It is a day for celebration, and as Andrew Collins agreed with his first choice of song this afternoon, a Kool and the Gang one at that.