BBC 6 Music launched “The John Peel Lecture” with Pete Townshend, the creative force, guitarist and chief songwriter of The Who, speaking live at this year’s Radio Academy Radio Festival in Salford’s Lowry Theatre.
The topic was: Can John Peelism survive the Internet? In an age of free downloads and a disposable attitude to music, can creative people earn a living, and without radio how can the “unpolished” music that John Peel championed find an audience?
The rock legend listed eight services that record labels and music publishers have traditionally provided to artists, such as editorial guidance and “creative nurture”.
“Is there really any good reason why, just because iTunes exists in the wild west internet land of Facebook and Twitter, it can’t provide some aspect of these services to the artists whose work it bleeds like a digital vampire, like a digital Northern Rock, for its enormous commission?” he asked.
You can view the lecture in full on BBC iplayer until Nov 7th