Will the power of the people #SaveBBC6Music?

March is officially the month for mutual blogging. In case you missed it, here is my guest post which featured on The PR View recently.

A week doesn’t seem to go by now without a Facebook or Twitter campaign cropping up “from the people.” But very few of them are actually successful. (Just type ‘Bring Back’ into Facebook search and you’ll see what I mean).

This month, the social networks and blogs are awash with the motto “Save BBC6 Music”.

After the BBC announced inevitable cuts were going to include the niche station BBC 6 Music, as well BBC Asian Network, loyal listeners rallied round in an attempt to keep their beloved station on the airwaves.

The main Facebook groups have already notched up over 100,000 members and the Twitter hash tag #saveBBC6music has been trending near the top for nigh-on two weeks. So how is it that certain causes seem to capture the hearts of the public so?
Ironically, it seems that since Mark Thompson’s proposal to scrap BBC 6 Music, the station has received the effective publicity some argue it has never got, and thanks to this could be pulling in a higher audience than ever since its launch in 2002.

After the likes of heavily documented ‘Bring Back Wispa’ and Rage Against the Machine campaigns, is this really another example of the power of the internet groundswell? Or is the BBC cunningly taking advantage of a good publicity opportunity, as some are conspiring?

Whatever the case may be, it seems that once again, the power of the social media community has made a difference to something in the real world. An article on the BBC’s website on Thursday claimed that thanks to so called “public concern”, the powers that be may be forced to “rethink” plans to axe BBC 6 Music, along with BBC Asian network. Arguably, it’s unlikely that the relatively small yet devoted listenership scattered across the UK would have been able to cause such a U-turn without the power of social networking communities.

It has been well documented that BBC 6 Music represents only £6million of the BBC’s billion pound annual budget, so how much difference can axing the station actually make? Ex Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, seems to think 6 Music will still be pumping out everything from medieval folk to retro funk and soul this time next year. And until we are told this for sure, it doesn’t look like the guys at the top are going to be able to silence the internet noise.