MixTogether & Friends

This week RAJAR, the radio industry’s audience measurement body, published its latest figures for the quarter to December 2009. The results make bleak reading for the BBC Asian Network.

Asian Network Listeners

Asian Network Listener Hours

In July 2009 the BBC Trust singled out the BBC Asian Network for criticism in its annual report. The station had lost 1/5 of its audience in a year despite spending £25m.

The Evening Standard at the time carried a report by Amar Singh stating that the Asian Network was under threat of closure because of its poor performance:

BBC’s £25m Asian station faces axe after audience plunges

It now seems that closure of the troubled station is all but inevitable. The BBC confided their worries to the Media Guardian on Wednesday before the Rajar results, and the Asian Network itself has been  briefing on panic schedule changes to reputable Asian Media news organisation BizAsia.

Managing Editor of the Station Vijay Sharma has been ‘in hiding‘ as the station’s demise has become public knowledge.

Last year, members of MixTogether drew up a proposal for the Asian Network. It was an idea for a show aimed at mixed race couples, who often struggle when traditional Asian family values are ranged against them. Our proposal was inspired by our work with genuine mixed couples. It was backed by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, Jasvinder Sanghera of Karma Nirvana, Parveen Bird of the Big Issue, mixed race charity People In Harmony and MPs Ann Cryer and Vince Cable. Their letters of support accompany the proposal.

The Asian Network dismissed our idea out of hand.

As with all progressive ideas that the Asian Network could have helped to introduce within the Asian community, our idea was ignored in favour of outdated talkshow debates where the same few callers were always invited to share their negative thoughts on progressive matters. Many of the Asian callers to their mixed race debates expressed opinions that would not have been out of place in a BNP meeting, but this was deemed acceptable in the name of balance. No other BBC station would have allowed such views on air if they had been expressed by white people.

How much more could the Asian Network have done to tackle the scourges of forced marriage, honour crime and disownment that blight the lives of many of their target audience?

It seems that the Asian Network audience was also looking for more from the station than outdated debates and poorly produced underground music, and they have been voting with their feet. Meanwhile the BBC’s black music station 1Xtra enjoys solid ratings, and their artists are Migraine Skanking all the way into the charts.

As Rumbold on Pickled Politics has observed, “there isn’t as much to say about the Asian Network as one might think; it is expensive and losing listeners”

The Network has had the time, money and goodwill to sponsor progressive ideas within the Asian community.

It has squandered all three.

It deserves to fail.