“BBC says my ‘Fears BBC England plans to kill Black and Asian voices’ blog is wrong” by Simon Albury

The BBC has emailed me to say the claims in my blog “Fears BBC England plans to kill Black and Asian voices as Ofcom says BBC is unrepresentative” are “absolutely not true.” It asks where my information came from. I have responded that

“My information came from a range of BBC journalists. The final version was confirmed by different BBC journalists in different parts of the country who were not aware that others were also reviewing it.”

The statement from the BBC fails to confirm that there will be no loss of Black and Asian voices or a reduction of hours over the next year nor that the fear of cuts is groundless. A number of proposal for change are currently subject to consultation.

BBC STATEMENT

A BBC spokesperson said: “There has been no reduction in the number of hours our community programmes broadcast across BBC local radio stations – in fact in places there have been increased hours. We are committed to our community shows, and our weekly Hindu, Sikh and Islamic reflections. Thanks to grassroots talent searches like New Voices we have discovered hundreds of new broadcasters and the stations are more representative of the communities they serve than ever before.”

For info, just today we have announced the launch of a news service on BBC Radio Leicester in both English and Gujarati languages, as the city enters a local lockdown. From today, news bulletins from BBC Radio Leicester are available on-demand on Amazon Alexa-enabled devices. More info here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/leicester-smart-speaker-news-update

For background, here is a list of some of our current Black and Asian community programming:

1800-2000 Sunday – Indus – Radio Manchester and Radio Lancashire – Talat-Farooq Awan

2000-2200 Sunday – Radio Manchester – Karen Gabay

1800-2000 Sunday – Radio Sheffield and Radio Leeds – Shawkat Hasmi

1800-2000 Sunday Radio Derby – Hansa Dabee

2000-2200 Sunday Radio Derby – Devon Daley

1800-2200 Sunday – Radio WM – Nikki Tapper and Midlands Masala

1800-2000 Sunday – Radio Nottingham – Hansa Dabee

2000-2200 Sunday – Radio Nottingham Jodi Law

1800 Sunday – Radio Stoke – South Asian content from Ajmal Hussain

1800-2200 Sunday – Radio Northampton and Radio 3CR – Ed Adoo

1800-2200 – Radio London – Ed Adoo