Greetings. This is what one might call a “vent post” if you do not know what that means now, you probably will do by the end. I intend to send a revised version of this to the BBC and so I’d thought to publish it here as an open letter. So brace yourselves.

I am 16 years of age and so I think it’s fair to say that I am your typical listening audience, I feel obliged to make comment on this because your horrendous content is forcibly inflicted on me and it saddens me that you can take yourselves seriously by abusing such a wide demographic. Here I hope to highlight where, in my opinion, you are going wrong so you can make some effort to change before it is too late.

I’ll start off with one of my personal bug bares, your news item. I believe it is entitled, “Newsbeat.” Now I think what one of the problems is here, is the “beat” aspect of the concept. The incessant thump belittles the significance of any story and only emphasise the brushing over of detail in the sparse reports. The news stories are dumbed down so severely and there is a patronising simplification of language.

I also feel the “more on this story online” phrase infuriatingly pointless; it is the purpose of the news to inform not to tease and make us find out for ourselves, there seems to be an underlying obsession with online integration that withdraws the quality of programming. Not to mention the “watch us live on the webstream,” that makes my blood boil. WE DO NOT WANT TO WATCH THE RADIO THAT IS WHAT THE TV IS FOR!

Now I’ll rattle off a few other things. There are more jingles than content. There is promotion of awful emo-rock when there is a perfectly good indie scene out there and this only adds to the mainstream’s rejection of guitar music as a whole. The coverage of the “Big Weekend” was abysmal. The presenters who insisted on talking over the live music deserve a slap.

The BBC’s policy is to educate and entertain, Radio 1 fails miserably to do either of these things. The function of the station appears to be to tailor programmes to boost the egos of the presenters. They claim to idolise every artist only devaluing their praise and opinions. It is only a desperate attempt to win the admiration they to flippantly bestow.

I pity the morons who call into the shows. Their stupidity is no fault of their own. Radio 1 has created a generation of complete idiots who crave desperately the painful, vacuous ten minute conversation with the presenter responsible for turning their mind to mush.

Radio 1 is a pollutant and a parasite on the airwaves, feeding on our desire for instantaneous entertainment. When its key demographic is so broad and so susceptible/vulnerable to its toxic ideas it is a travesty that such poor broadcasting is spewed onto them. With such a huge influence, the station has a huge responsibility. Instead of using this power to actually teach people something and enhance our quality of life it abuses this and insultingly exploits it to only boost the already inflated egos of its presenters and drive us mere mortals to despair.