Madonna is accusing BBC Radio 1 of ageism after a station programmer stated they would not be playing her new single “Living for Love,” and surprise, she might have a point.
According to Radio 1’s head of music George Ergatoudis, the station is trying to lower the age of their average listener, and he believes that Madonna’s audience is either “over 30” or “moved on from Madonna”:
“The BBC Trust have asked us to go after a young audience. We’ve got to concentrate on [people aged] 15-30. We have to bring our average age down. That’s something we’re very conscious of,” Ergatoudis said (via the BBC). “The vast majority of people who like Madonna, who like her music now, are over 30 and frankly, we’ve moved on from Madonna.”
Madonna called out BBC Radio 1’s decision as “discriminatory” and said that the singer’s age shouldn’t matter, just whether they wrote a “good, catchy pop song.” She also pointed out the double standard with the age of male pop stars vs. female pop stars and how it is still socially acceptable to “totally discriminate against somebody and talk shit” if they are an older woman but not if they are an older man:
“My manager said to me, ‘If you’re not in your twenties, it’s hard. You might get your record played in your thirties. There’s a handful of people who do – Pharrell got lucky. But if you’re in your fifties, you can forget it’,” Madonna said. “I didn’t know it was anything to do with my age. I just do my work. We’ve made so many advances in other areas – civil rights, gay rights – but ageism is still an area that’s taboo and not talked about and dealt with.”
Not everyone at BBC Radio 1 is in agreement, however. DJ Annie Mac included “Living for Love” in her handpicked block, and currently, she has two Madonna songs featured in the “Benji B Special Delivery & Tough Love Mini Mix” on her BBC Radio 1 page, “Living for Love” and “Hung Up.”
(Source: Rolling Stone)
