Prolific pop star Madonna has come down hard on a BBC Radio programmer for passing what she tagged “a demeaning remark” about her new single ‘Living for Love’ , accusing the Radio house of ‘ageism.’
The programmer had reportedly stated that the station would not broadcast the pop star’s single in an effort to lower the demographic of its audience.
“I was like, ‘Wait a second. Shouldn’t it have to do with whether you wrote a good, catchy pop song?,’ the singer said.
“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”. 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,’ she added.
Meanwhile the BBC had in a reaction, dismissed the insinuation that the song being left off the station’s playlist had anything to do with Madonna’s age. This was contained in a statement released by the Radio house.
However, contrary to the statement, BBC Radio 1’s head of music, George Ergatoudis had revealed that “The BBC Trust have asked us to go after a young audience. We’ve got to concentrate on persons between 15 – 30 age bracket. We have to bring our average age down. That’s something we’re very conscious of.”
“The vast majority of people who like Madonna, who like her music now, are over 30 and frankly, we’ve moved on from Madonna,” Ergatoudis added.
The 56-year-old, Madonna Louise Ciccone, who is often referred to as the “Queen of Pop”, is cited as an influence among other artists around the world.
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