Threaten it with closure. Slash the budget. Let some of its longest-serving stars leave without so much as flinching. As sinking ships go, BBC Asian Network was taking the Titanic approach to a dignified exit: snap your lapels and keep the music playing – there are still standards to maintain. Plus, if you kept your head above water long enough, who knew what might happen? You might find a way to stay afloat.
Which, in a sense, is what BBC Asian Network has done in the last couple of years. While its fellow station, 6 Music, survived with the help of a high-profile media campaign, this less fashionable niche cause seems to have stemmed the tide through sheer bloodymindedness; 34% of the budget has gone. Five broadcasting bases have shrunk to two: Birmingham and London. Adil – AKA Citizen Khan – Ray, Sonia Deol and Nikki Beddi, all star talents who cemented their careers at the station, have moved on. For better or worse (and it depends on who you ask), Vijay Sharma – the driving force behind turning the Asian Network from five hours a week of programming on BBC Radio Leicester back in the 70s, to a 21st-century operation – also left the network this spring.
And yet, the latest Rajar figures show 584,000 listeners are tuning in each week, rising steadily each quarter and up from 507,000 last year. That's around a fifth of all British Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis and Sri Lankans, comfortably making it the country's No 1 South Asian station (there are around a dozen). A new schedule was launched on Monday because, this weekend, BBC Asian Network also celebrates its 10th birthday as a national, digital broadcaster.
Have things finally gone right?
Once, Asian Network was the preset of choice for first generation parents tuning in for a couple of hours of filmi hits and desi chatter every week. The station has since set itself the mammoth task of chasing second-, third- and fourth-generation British Asian audiences, too. This, plus an existing remit to appeal across socio-economic and religious divides puts it in a bizarre place in an industry defined by much narrower targets. Who, after all, enjoys listening to the same radio station as their parents? And since when did a nostalgic fondness for AR Rahman also extend to a taste for Punjabi R&B mash-ups? It's tricky territory.
And so, the new format bedding in this week has seen a slight reduction in specialist language programmes – the few shows broadcast in Punjabi, Hindi, Gujarati etc – which pull in a core of loyal listeners. DJs Tommy Sandhu, Nihal, Noreen Khan, Bobby Friction and Ray Khan are all still on air, but with longer slots to fill. And from midnight to 6am, Asian Network links up to a Radio 5 feed instead.
It makes a kind of sense, even if now the Asian Network seems a little less about housewives calling in to request an old Bollywood classic, or retired folks shooting the breeze. But just as the country's demographic has changed over the last 20 to 30 years, so has the station's MO.
The trick, says Nihal , is "never to patronise anyone". I sit in on his phone-in show on its very first day in the rejigged format. Conversation is lively – Sony judges described him as "quite simply brilliant" when he scooped gold ahead of shows on Radio 4 and the World Service. Topics include British trade talks with the controversial chief minister of Gujarat, NHS care for pregnant women, and the death of Indian film icon Yash Chopra. The chat is stapled around a playlist of Bollywood, bhangra and Brit-Asian fusion.
But Nihal, also a Radio 1 DJ, is a deft operator. Last year, he invited the EDL's Sikh spokesman, Guramit Singh, in for a debate. (According to the team, that show provoked the year's second-highest number of complaints to Ofcom.) He has talked about everything from child abuse to integration and strip clubs.
Predictably, the station has been accused at one time or another of bias against each of the communities listening in – Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus. But just as it's true that no A-list star from the Indian subcontinent would dare make a promo trip to Britain without dropping in for a chat, so the internal reviews into neutrality help keep the station in check. The station has secured its future with the BBC Trust, but quite what that looks, or in fact sounds, like is continually developing – which is, I think, a good thing.
You might well argue that the station's very existence is a lesson in the failure of multiculturalism. But these shows are uniquely British, broadcasting to multiple generations of British listeners. It's nothing short of an integrated success.
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