Next Radio 1 boss

[Jono]

Amazing Radio, the national digital station that only plays unsigned artists discovered online, has lodged a complaint to the BBC Trust calling for rival service BBC Introducing to be investigated for allegedly squeezing out commercial players.

The company launched on digital audio broadcasting (DAB) on 1 June, only the third digital-only station on the service, as a national launchpad for unsigned artists that have uploaded music to the website amazingtunes.com.

Paul Campbell, the chief executive of parent company Amazing Media Group, has written to the BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, complaining that the corporation's rival service, based around the BBC Introducing website, is an unnecessary copycat of a product already provided by the market that has been massively expanded and now threatens to kill his business plans.

"It is an outrage that the BBC should use public funding to copy our concept and, by default, seek to put us out of business. This is to all intents and purposes a direct copy of our privately funded concept," said Campbell, a former BBC executive, in the letter to Lyons.

"I am dismayed that my former employer should behave in so aggressive a manner towards a private British company. I would ask that the BBC Trust investigate BBC Introducing as a matter of urgency," he added.

However, a BBC spokeswoman refuted Campbell's complaint, saying that nurturing new talent was part of the BBC's remit.

"We strongly refute this suggestion. Supporting new talent is at the core of the BBC's mission and BBC Introducing has been offering unique broadcast and performance opportunities to new and unsigned musicians for over two years," she added. "We are very proud of the work BBC Introducing does in championing new artists but, as it offers quite different opportunities to other new music schemes, we would encourage new bands to explore all the avenues open to them."

The initial BBC Introducing website was launched through a deal to sponsor a stage at Glastonbury in June 2007. Since then the brand has grown to have a presence at festivals including the Radio 1 Big Weekend, T in the Park, Reading and Leeds, while unsigned artists can get national coverage on BBC stations Radio 1, 6 Music, 1 Xtra and the Asian Network.

About 35 of the corporation's local radio stations also have BBC Introducing shows. Bands that the BBC claims have had a break through the service include the Ting Tings and Florence and the Machine.

Campbell claimed that the flow through of acts from BBC Introducing has on occasion gone as far as appearances on Jools Holland's BBC2 show.

He said he had been prompted to send the letter because the expansionist activity of the BBC had led to investors in parent company Amazing Media raising concerns about the level of competition.

The company is also on the brink of signing an indefinite extension to a six-month pilot deal for Amazing Radio on DAB, under which it will have to foot transmission costs of well over £600,000 a year.

He said that the DAB platform, which has struggled to gain traction with broadcasters, needs "innovative, new propostions to get people to buy [DAB] radios" but that the BBC's activities threatened Amazing Media's business plan and current funding drive.

"I would like to not be in the position where I can't grow the business and get funding because the BBC is too much of a competitor," said Campbell, speaking to MediaGuardian.co.uk.

He added that the Amazingtunes.com website was beta launched in 2005 - two years before BBC Introducing went online - and went fully live in 2006. The parent company raised about £2m in 2007 and is owned by about 20 people.

The company claimed it runs an "ethical" download service where artists receive about 45p per download, from a 79p overall charge, which Campbell said is far superior to the cut they get from iTunes, which can be as low as 8p per track.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/amazing-radio-bbc