BBC Radio 1 have responded to a report that said La Roux’s latest single was not selected for its playlist because she is too old.
Yesterday, The Sun claimed that the singer, aged 26, had been “deemed ‘elderly'” for the station and “shunted off to Radio 2”.
However, speaking to NME, a spokesperson for the station has repudiated the report, issuing the following statement: “Each track is considered for the playlist based on its musical merit and whether it is right for our target audience, with decisions made on a case-by-case basis.” A spokesperson for La Roux said there was no comment on the report.
In an interview with The Independent, the station’s head of music George Ergatoudis added that artists are left off the playlist not because of their age, but because of the fierce competition they face.
“We make some heart-rending decisions on records every week and we cannot avoid upsetting people,” he said.
According to Ergatoudis, the La Roux situation is linked more to the number of female-fronted pop acts – including Iggy Azalea, Charli XCX and Foxes – all competing for space on the playlist. “There’s quite extraordinary strength in numbers,” he said.
BBC Radio 1 Breakfast Show host Nick Grimshaw also appeared to allude to the report this morning, posting a picture of the La Roux track on his Instagram this morning.
http://instagram.com/p/rBdJIxPJ-u/embed/
Radio 1 has also come under fire this month from Lily Allen, who hit out at the station managers after she was dropped from the playlist.
“The truth is nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing,” she said. “They can pretend they’ve got a formula that works and [that] they ‘know’ they’re exactly in control of the game, but they’re just not. No one knows.”