Planet Rock Hopes to Sign Up Bruce
The Guardian reports:"Planet Rock owner Malcolm Bluemel wants to hire outgoing BBC 6 Music DJ Bruce Dickinson - and hopes his loss-making digital station will break even by the end of this year.
He has held talks with the Iron Maiden frontman, who will present his last 6 Music show in April after eight years on the BBC digital station. 6 Music is set to close at the end of 2011 under controversial proposals put forward by BBC director general Mark Thompson.
Bluemel, who rescued Planet Rock after its former owner GCap Media said it was going to close the station, said he was "disappointed" at the prospect of 6 Music's demise.
"It's not a good thing for digital radio to have it close," said Bluemel, whose station has an average weekly reach of 698,000 listeners, marginally ahead of 6 Music, which had 695,000 in the last three months of 2009.
But he described the station's annual budget of £9m in 2008-09, including £6.5m on content, as "ridiculous".
"We could run the station on a quarter of that budget. There is no reason to kill 6 Music. They should just kill some of the cost. It is a ridiculous amount of money to run a station that size," Bluemel said.
Planet Rock is loss-making but Bluemel said he hoped it would break even, on a monthly basis, by the end of this year.
He said Planet Rock cost about £2m a year to run, split evenly between content and distribution. It is broadcast online, on digital TV, and on the national commercial digital audio broadcasting (DAB) platform, Digital One.
Bluemel said he had "tentative conversations" with Dickinson and hoped to speak to him again this week. "Bruce is interested in doing a show for Planet Rock and I am interested in having him. Whether we can put a deal together remains to be seen," he added.
Planet Rock, which was named digital station of the year at the Sony Radio Academy Awards in 2008, has recently overhauled its playlist to include what Bluemel described as "latter-day classic rock acts" such as Foo Fighters, Green Day and Muse.
"Rock is evolving and we should evolve a bit with it," said Bluemel. "Otherwise you end up playing to a lot of dead people. You can't keep playing the same records but we have got a massive playlist and we will always be playing Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and AC/DC." "