Latest news about BBC Radio 6 Music

BBC Radio 6 Music Festival 2020 to be held in Camden, London

Lauren Laverne has announced on her BBC Radio 6 Music Breakfast Show that Camden, London will host the 6 Music Festival in 2020. The festival will take place from Friday 6 to Sunday 8 March. Many of 6 Music’s much loved presenters will be broadcasting their shows live from Camden, as the station takes over some of the area’s most iconic venues for the weekend. Highlights will also be shown on BBC Four and BBC iPlayer. There will be events in the day as well as at night, with activity including a series of live performances, spoken word, poetry, Q&A sessions and DJ sets...

Winners announced for the 2019 Audio Production Awards

The winners have been revealed for the Audio Production Awards at a gala evening at the BFI Southbank, hosted by Tommy Sandhu. The special Gold Award went to the Mental Health Minute, coordinated by Radiocentre and produced by Somethin’ Else in 2018 and TBI Media in 2019. The Mental Health Minute was broadcast in May across hundreds of radio stations, including BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and 5 Live, BBC Local Radio, as well as networks including Global, Bauer and Wireless and community stations. It reached a combined audience of over 40 million people, and featured His Royal Highness The Duke of Cambridge...

The Sound Odyssey with Gemma Cairney returns to BBC Radio 4

Loyle Carner, Kate Stables of This is the Kit, Nubya Garcia and Roxanne Tataei feature in the second series of BBC Radio 4’s The Sound Odyssey. TV and radio presenter, Gemma Cairney, will once again accompany four contemporary musicians to locations across the world as they collaborate with local artists; creating a new piece of music especially for the programme. Gemma Cairney says: “Making The Sound Odyssey, I’m left ever inspired by the beautiful human connection created through music...

Zoe Ball joins top earners list at the BBC

New BBC Radio 2 breakfast show host Zoe Ball has joined the BBC big earners top 10 list whilst Jeremy Vine took at £110k pay cut. Vanessa Feltz also makes it inside the top 10 list, which this year includes three women for the first time, along with Claudia Winkleman. Chris Evans is still in the list, as it covers the period from April 2018 to March 2019, so will only represent nine months of work. He got £1.25m for 150 editions of the Breakfast Show (or £8.3k per programme).

RAJAR Q1 2019: Milestones reached for DAB and digital radio

Digital listening has reached a new record share of 56.4%, up from 50.9% in Q1 2018, according to RAJAR Q1 2019 data released today. The annual growth of 5.5 percentage points to 56.4% from 50.9% represents the strongest ever percentage point growth in digital listening platform share since records began. Digital reach increased by over 2 million listeners to 36.3 million and overall digital listening grew by 55.9 million hours or by 10.7% year on year.

BBC to create single role to Control Radio 1 and Radio 2

The BBC is to create a new single role of Controller of its pop music stations Radio 1, 1Xtra, Asian Network, Radio 2 and 6 Music. Heads of each station, plus BBC Music and the Music TV commissioning heads, will report to the new Controller. A source tells RadioToday that Ben Cooper, currently Controller of Radio 1, 1Xtra and BBC Asian Network is expected to be appointed to the new position across all five services.

6 Music’s Lauren Laverne named Radio Broadcaster of the Year

Lauren Laverne has been named Radio Broadcaster of the Year at the 45th Broadcasting Press Guild Awards. The national breakfast presenter was honoured for her work on BBC Radio 6 Music as well as Desert Island Discs and Late Night Woman’s Hour, both on BBC Radio 4. The chair of the BPG radio jury, Julian Clover, said: “Our winner moves seamlessly between speech and music radio"...

Broadcasting Press Guild Awards 2019 nominations

BBC radio presenters Danny Baker, Lauren Laverne, Cerys Matthews and Paddy O’Connell have been shortlisted in this year’s Broadcasting Press Guild Awards. Comedian Romesh Ranganathan is also among this year’s nominees for the BPG’s Podcast of the Year award, acknowledging the growth and quality of streamed and downloadable audio. The 45th annual BPG awards, sponsored by Virgin Media, will be presented next month at...

Actor Cillian Murphy to host shows on BBC Radio 6 Music

Cillian Murphy is set to join BBC Radio 6 Music for a run of shows covering Guy Garvey. The Peaky Blinders actor will be on-air Sundays, 2-4pm, from 3 March until Summer 2019, whilst Guy takes an extended break to work on his next album. Cillian Murphy, also known for his roles in the films Dunkirk, Inception, The Dark Knight Trilogy, Breakfast on Pluto and 28 Days Later, says: “As a music lover, mixtape obsessive and long-time 6 Music fan I couldn’t be more chuffed to be asked to sit in for Guy on his hiatus.

The week in radio and podcasts: Lauren Laverne; Mary Anne Hobbs; Shaun Keaveny

New year, new regime. Radio 2 starts its big shake-up on 14 January, with Zoe Ball and Sara Cox sliding into their fresh weekday time slots of breakfast and drivetime respectively: expect tabloid coverage and on-air laffs. Radio 1’s Charlie Sloth bowed out from the station in October, with the young yet experienced Tiffany Calver taking over his 9pm Saturday night Rap Show slot, and Rickie, Melvin and Charlie, ex-Kiss FM, due to start in his weekday evening The 8th slot soon...