BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the
BBC.
The current director of music is
Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content ...
,
BBC Radio 6 Music, and the
BBC Asian Network
BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station ha ...
.
Officially it is a part of the BBC's
Radio
Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transm ...
operational division and is directly responsible to
Helen Boaden
Helen Boaden (born 1 March 1956) is a British former broadcasting executive who spent more than 30 years working for the BBC, including as Director of Radio between February 2013 and September 2016.Tom Harpe"BBC news head Helen Boaden moved to ...
(director of Radio); however, its remit also includes music used in television and online services. It was established in its current form in 2014; however, the BBC had already been using the BBC Music brand to refer to its online music content and some live events beforehand, including a now defunct record label.
Launch
BBC Music had its official launch at 20:00 on 7 October 2014, with a
simulcast
Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simult ...
of a specially-commissioned cover of the
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
' 1966 song "
God Only Knows".
Produced by
Ethan Johns, it featured a
supergroup of singers such as
Chris Martin (of
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1997. They consist of vocalist and pianist Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, drummer Will Champion and creative director Phil Harvey (manager), Phil H ...
),
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, pop, sou ...
,
Kylie Minogue
Kylie Ann Minogue (; born 28 May 1968) is an Australian singer, songwriter and actress. She is the highest-selling female Australian artist of all time, having sold over 80 million records worldwide. She has been recognised for reinve ...
,
Dave Grohl (of
Foo Fighters
Foo Fighters are an American Rock music, rock band formed in Seattle in 1994. Foo Fighters was initially formed as a one-man project by former Nirvana (band), Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl. Following the success of the Foo Fighters (album), epony ...
),
Elton John
Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...
,
Pharrell Williams
Pharrell Lanscilo Williams (; born April 5, 1973) is an American record producer, rapper, singer, and songwriter. Alongside close colleague Chad Hugo, he formed the hip hop and R&B production duo the Neptunes in the early 1990s, with whom h ...
,
One Direction
One Direction, often shortened to 1D, are an English-Irish pop boy band formed in London in 2010. The group are composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and previously Zayn Malik until his departure from the gro ...
, and
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...
(
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...
) accompanied by the
BBC Concert Orchestra.
Responsibilities
BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. It has direct editorial control of the music content of the BBC's six national music radio stations
Radio 1,
1Xtra
BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio in the United Kingdom, digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban contemporary, urban music, including Hip hop music, hip hop and Contemporary R&B, R&B an ...
,
Radio 2,
Radio 3,
6 Music, and the
BBC Asian Network
BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station ha ...
, as well as organising live music events for each of the stations. These include
Radio 1's Big Weekend, ''Live in Hyde Park'' and ''In Concert'' for Radio 2, the
BBC Proms
The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Ha ...
(including the various "Proms in the Park" events), and the BBC 6 Music festival.
Many of the BBC televisual music programmes and documentaries are now co-produced with BBC Music, with a BBC Music
ident often being played between the regular channel ident and the start of the programme. It will also coordinate the BBC's coverage of other live music events such as the
Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contempo ...
,
T in the Park, the
Reading and Leeds Festivals, and
Celtic Connections amongst others.
It is responsible for the BBC's online music database, collating every music track played across the BBC's national radio stations and a larger amount of the music played on the BBC's UK television channels. This includes looking after My Tracks, formerly BBC Playlister, an interactive, personalisable music service that allows users to create playlists of music that have been played across the BBC using existing online platforms
Deezer,
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
and
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a proprietary Swedish audio streaming and media services provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. It is one of the largest music streaming service providers, with over 456 million monthly active us ...
.
It also features playlists created by BBC radio DJs and presenters such as
Jo Whiley,
Greg James
Gregory James Alan Milward (born 17 December 1985) is an English radio and television presenter, comedian and author. He is the host of BBC Radio 1's breakfast show, co-presenter on the cricket podcast ''Tailenders'' alongside Felix White and ...
,
Steve Lamacq
Stephen Paul Lamacq (born 16 October 1964), sometimes known by his nickname Lammo (given to him by John Peel), is an English disc jockey, currently working with the BBC radio station BBC Radio 6 Music.
Early life
He attended The Ramsey Acade ...
,
Zane Lowe
Alexander Zane Reid Lowe (born 7 August 1973) is a New Zealand radio DJ, live DJ, record producer, and television presenter.
After an early career in music creation, production and DJing, he moved to the UK in 1997. He came to prominence thro ...
, and
Fearne Cotton.
Additionally, it coordinates the production of the
BBC Music Awards and also oversees
BBC Introducing, an initiative to get less well-known and unsigned artists played on local and national radio.
See also
* ''
BBC Music Magazine''
* ''
BBC Sounds
BBC Sounds is a walled garden streaming media and audio download service from the BBC that includes live radio broadcasts, audio on demand, and podcasts. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, ...
''
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bbc Music
BBC Radio
*