Sometimes I wonder why I don’t listen to the radio more. Certainly there’s the irritating prattle between songs and the fact that I don’t really need someone else to choose music for me. But, thanks to a new tool on the BBC website, I’m now able to see that they don’t actually play any of the music I listen to.
As Matthew Shorter explains on his BBC blog, you can track the total plays since September 2007 (excluding specialist shows) for any artist:
1. visit http://musicbrainz.org
2. enter artist name in the “artist” field under “Search” on the left hand side
3. click on the name you’re after on the list of results
4. select the alphanumeric ID from the page’s URL, e.g. from http://musicbrainz.org/artist/4dca4bb2-23ba-4103-97e6-5810311db33a.html, select 4dca4bb2-23ba-4103-97e6-5810311db33a.
5. paste the ID to the end of the URL http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/, e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/artists/4dca4bb2-23ba-4103-97e6-5810311db33a
It’s astonishing really. There are four main stations to choose from – Radio One, Radio Two, 6Music and 1Xtra – but my taste doesn’t figure. I checked out my top 20 artists for the last six months as recorded on Last.fm.
Andrew Bird, Thelonius Monk, Gunild Keetman, Mayra Andrade, Yo La Tengo, Autechre, Tom Waits, Lyrics Born, Steve Reich, M Ward, Hanne Hukkelberg, Sufjan Stevens, Of Montreal, El Perro Del Mar and Liars – 15 of my top 20 artists have barely featured on BBC radio over the last 11 months. Some of those are jazz, classical and world musicians and therefore excluded from the stations above but the rest are relatively well-known, critically well-received and still active. Two of them have released albums this year, a few of the others released albums last year but not a dent on BBC Radio.
I tried a few other artists I listen to a lot with the same result: Battles, Dirty Projectors, K’Naan, Of Montreal and TV on the Radio to name a few.
Of course, there’s no reason why my favourite artists should be played. 6Music, for example, focuses on the “cutting edge music of today” and “the iconic and groundbreaking music of the past 40 years”. Perhaps Liars aren’t cutting edge enough. Perhaps Tom Waits isn’t iconic and groundbreaking.
On his 6Music blog, Steve Lamacq bemoans the state of this year’s Mercury Prize shortlist. He’d rather write about Silvery and XX Teens – two of his favourite artists at the moment. He may write about them but doesn’t seem too fussed about playing them. If the data are correct, Lamacq has played each artist only once on his show.
So what have they been playing? Well, Coldplay mostly. In the last week, Chris Martin’s outfit have been played 60 times across radios One, Two and 6. More than eight times a day.
After that, it’s one major label act after another. Adele, Noah and the Whale, The Verve… cutting edge? There are two independent acts in last week’s top 20, Tinchy Stryder and Dizzee Rascal – both there courtesy of 1Xtra, but if you want to get on the other stations you’ll be needing big money behind you.
And remember: you’re never more than three hours away from Coldplay on the BBC. If that’s not enough to make you smash your radio I don’t know what is.
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Comments About BBC Radio: worse than I thought
// 7 comments so far.
Alan Connor (Beeboid) // July 30th 2008
If the data are correct
When I looked at Nina Simone’s page, it said “Information displayed about music played on BBC radio networks is incomplete at present” and “Learn more about this artist play count information”.
So I’m not sure they are!
Shane Richmond // July 30th 2008
Hi Alan,
Matthew Shorter’s blogpost says that Radio 3 data are absent, as are stats for Radio 2’s specialist shows. Tom Scott – also linked above – suggests that all specialist output is absent. However, there’s nothing to indicate that data for individual presenters are incomplete. I’d be interested to know whether Lamacq really has played those artists as rarely as the numbers suggest.
Alan Connor (Beeboid) // July 30th 2008
Me too. More to follow – and I’d be interested to know whether my favourite artist (Nina Simone) is really played more by Chris Evans than anyone else.
coxy // July 30th 2008
Haha, I like your take on the launch of the new BBC Music beta – to me it just cements my opinion of Radio One being utter shite too. Less so 6 Music; I like the station, but maybe it will highlight how bad they can be too.
Jamie Tetlow // August 03rd 2008
Hi Shane, i couldn’t agree more with you about Coldplay and the destructive destiny of ones radio but i guess you need to consider you’ll always get the big guns bubbling to the top with such a large data set (4 stations worth of playlist driven daytime scheduling). Your own last.fm library has Radiohead and R.E.M. at the top (although, yes, i accept they’re the alternative end of mainstream). As the very first stab at charting BBC Radio’s pan network playout i think the list shows a reasonably eclectic mix. As specialist shows, Radio 3 and TV get added and the team build new ways to chart these playout behaviours maybe this transparent, honest approach, when exposed so explicitly to the DJs, will encourage the kind of variety you (and others: Coxy) are after – as Alan says “more to follow”
Shane Richmond // August 03rd 2008
You can’t drill down in either data set but, if you could, I’d be willing to bet that the Beeb has been playing a very small number of Coldplay tracks over and over again while I’m pretty sure that I’ve listened to a broad range of Radiohead and REM tracks over the couple of years I’ve been on Last.fm. I take your point but even that comparison makes a point about the narrow range played on the BBC.
And you’re right that “playlist driven daytime scheduling” is likely to privilege the mainstream but should it? This is a discussion for another day but shouldn’t the BBC be doing more to promote artists who are ignored by commercial radio? More, that is, than tucking the difficult stuff away on ’specialist’ shows. Does the BBC offer enough of an alternative to commercial radio?
Finally, I have to admit that there’s nothing the BBC – or any radio station could do – to convince me to listen. I add 300 tracks a month to my iPod via eMusic and usually a few others from iTunes. Add those to the 20,000 songs already in my library, broken down by an variety of playlists, and I have a readymade radio station that never plays a song I don’t want to hear. On the rare occasions when that isn’t enough, Last.fm itself usually comes up with the goods.
All of which raises another question for another day: does traditional radio have anything to offer serious music fans?
Matthew Shorter // August 12th 2008
Forgive the delayed reply – just back from two weeks holiday. I realise no one has given a specific answer to your query:
“there’s nothing to indicate that data for individual presenters are incomplete. I’d be interested to know whether Lamacq really has played those artists as rarely as the numbers suggest.”
And I can answer that yes, data for individual presenters is also incomplete. This is because we are currently tracking data for music that comes through our automated playout system, but not that which is played by presenters from CDs in the studio. Steve Lamacq is one of many presenters who works with a mix of the two. We are working to remedy this situation, so that we have as close to a complete and accurate data set as possible before we come out of beta.
So to underline the point, not only is the data incomplete, but it actively favours more mainstream, playlisted music.
I’m reluctant to engage on the BBC’s music policy (outside my bailiwick), but in terms of your final point, all the research data we have points to the fact that radio is still the most important music discovery mechanism for a big majority of our audience. This always comes as a surprise to those of us who live and breathe new media (or have highly developed specialist music tastes) and are aware of the size and maturity of communities around digital music discovery services like Last.fm, but there we are.
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