The BBC's plans to cut down the scale of the regional Introducing shows will punish artists from small towns and stop talent from reaching their potential.
Most, if not all, emerging artists these days will have either heard of, been featured on or found music through their local BBC Introducing show. Since 2007, the regional showcases have become incredibly valuable to the promotion of new music in this country. Platinum-selling artists Ed Sheeran and George Ezra had humble beginnings there, as well as Little Simz - who I firmly believe is the coolest person on the planet. I digress, but my initial point still stands. As an artist, all of my projects have had some level of support through BBC Intro shows and I was even invited onto the radio show itself with my music partner Liv when we were about fifteen. We were taken seriously, as emerging talent, but we were just a small part of a community of artists in a small, run-down part of the country. It felt like the start of something, with the Intro show inspiring us as kids wanting to play music to go out and book shows in Manchester and Liverpool because of it. The BBC have now announced plans to change the format, to reduce it to fewer regions and essentially restrict the amount of new, exciting music coming out of smaller parts of the UK.
The beauty of the current format is the promotion of community. Particularly in Accrington and Blackburn, which is where I am from, the deprived areas of the UK struggle anyway when it comes to keeping the arts alive. The nurturing of artists in small groups allows them to grow naturally and without constant pressure to compete with a thousand other similar acts. From there, they can move on to bigger platforms and push their career on with healthier competition.
And that's the thing; competition is healthy. You need to not be the only person in your town making music. You should never feel as though you're the absolute best. You need artists around you, on the same trajectory, constantly pushing you to be better, inspiring you to create more and hopefully forming lasting relationships. When I look back to around 2016/17, when we were first starting to look at recording our own music, there was an emerging Blackburn scene which included The Ruby Tuesdays, Violet Youth, Elephant Bay (the precursors to Hot Minute) & The Yaya. A new venue had just opened up in town, which last week sadly announced it was to close its doors. I'll never forget being sat in the kitchen, listening to the radio, hearing Elephant Bay's single Everest being played on the Introducing in Lancashire show. I thought it was the most amazing thing in the world. I went up to Liv the next day at school with renewed vigour to write music and be like them. We were lucky enough to then play with these bands and form friendships that still stand. Friendships cultivated through BBC Introducing's influence.
The Blackburn scene is dying as it is. With venues struggling to stay open in cities like Manchester, what does that say about how difficult it is to maintain a music scene in a small mill town?
All this would be exacerbated by these new proposals from the BBC. Artists from small towns getting lumped in with those from bustling cities will drown out their voices. It wouldn't be a case of artists having to compete more to be heard - it would be a case of there simply not being enough room. Stifling talent is the exact antithesis of what Introducing set out to do; the presenters acting as A&R representatives for their constituencies and proudly displaying their best music. Each region was supposed to be individually visible and accessible, ensuring that there was representation on the biggest stations from all over the country.
Reducing this to fewer regions is a huge step backwards, and it worries me. It worries a lot of people. In an open letter to BBC chair Richard Sharp, the Music Venues Trust declared the changes to be a "fundamental blow to the health of the entire grassroots sector".
Potentially, there are fellow artists reading this. I'll bet my hat it doesn't sit well with any of you.
We'll see what happens then, eh?
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