6 poster campaign targets BBC bosses

16:02 | Monday May 10, 2010

The campaign by 38 Degrees has just rolled out in seven cities across the UK, the latest step in an ongoing drive by the political activism organisation against the proposed cutbacks announced by the Corporation at the end of February.

Billboards have gone up in Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, Leicester, London and Manchester proclaiming “Stop the BBC Cuts!” and noting, “Thousands of us are working to oppose cuts to the BBC, including 6 Music and the Asian Network.”

A poster van was today driving around BBC sites in London, including Bush House, Broadcasting House and Radio 1’s home of Yalding House, while some of the posters have been deliberately placed near other BBC locations.

“We’ve got billboards up as close as we can to their offices so in Manchester the posters are as near as possible to the Salford HQ rather than in central Manchester as we want to make sure the message gets through to the BBC bosses,” says 38 Degrees’ campaigns director Hannah Lownsbrough.

With the BBC Trust consultation on the proposed cuts closing on May 25, Lownsbrough says her organisation is aiming to keep up the pressure on the Trust. She remains optimistic that 6 can be saved.

“They have a consultation period for a reason and I don’t think they could have anticipated the strength of public opposition to some of these cuts,” she says.

AIM has been part of widespread lobbying by the music industry against the BBC proposals, particularly with regard to 6 Music, and its chairman and CEO Alison Wenham says it made sense to be part of 38 Degrees’ campaign.

“We are supporting an organisation which is working across all different sorts of platforms, including comedy and journalists, because there are so many other groups that are going to be badly affected by the proposal to axe 6 Music so we felt it was probably better to join forces to make a general point on behalf of the creative community,” she says.