The European Media Forum has somewhat ambitiously called on the BBC to sell off Radio 1 and 2 "as soon as possible". They say that by spending £450 million of licence payers' money on radio each year the Beeb is severely limiting the growth of the commercial radio sector and that the Corporation's radio division should, therefore, be considerably downsized. Given that Radio 1 and 2 are music based services, the Forum argues, they are the most obvious stations to privatise because they have "a limited public service role".
In a report for the Forum, economist Keith Boyfield writes: "Our argument is that whereas you can put forward a pretty compelling case for a public sector role for Radios 4 and 3 - and also Radio 5, it gets a bit thin when you look at Radios 1 and 2 - and they could survive quite easily in the private sector".
The BBC responded by saying that the diverse range of specialist and documentary based shows carried by Radio 1 and 2 are not found in the commercial sector, and therefore the stations do have a public service remit, though Boyfield argues that given their current audience reach, both stations could exist in the commercial sector quite nicely without any major change to their programming output.
Boyfield says that the BBC's dominance in the music radio space, through Radio 1 and 2, coupled with its ability to cross-promote the stations through its other media, means that the commercial radio sector is suffering from "stunted growth".