Madonna has been battling ageism in the music industry for quite some time. In 1992, during an interview with Jonathan Ross on British television, she famously said: “Not only do we suffer from racism and sexism, but we also suffer from ageism”. Over 20 years later, BBC Radio 1 presenter Scott Mills and the head of BBC Music Bob Shennan both announced that the network isn’t interested in playlisting Madonna anymore. The problem is her apparent “irrelevance”.

Radio 1 had been in hot waters before for excluding certain songs from their playlist, only because of the age of the performers. Notably in 2012, when they turned down Robbie Williams’ comeback single “Candy”. Supported by strong sales, Williams went on to score a UK number 1 with the song anyway. But the truth is that when rejected by mainstream radio stations, the chance for a song to crack the top 5 dramatically decreases.

 

Last week, BBC Radio 1 made a mistake by asking fans in a Facebook post which song they want them to play next. What followed, was surely not what the radio staff were expecting: a massive flurry of comments in support of Madonna! Hundreds, if not thousands of fans from all around the world demanded that the station plays her latest single “Living for Love”, and accused the broadcaster of ageism. The following day, in a desperate act of defence, the radio published another post. Though they pointed out that the 72-year old Paul McCartney has two tracks on their playlist (“FourFiveSeconds” and “Only One”), they “forgot” to mention that he’s only a guest performer on them. If it wasn’t for Rihanna and Kanye West, would they have played them? No, not once.

 

Comments supporting Madonna and accusing Radio 1 of ageism were literally flooding their Facebook page for the next few days. They were appearing under every post, as well as their profile picture and cover photo. Fans, many of them from South America, which is known as one of Madonna’s strongest fan bases in the world, were posting YouTube links to her latest video and urging the radio to drop the discriminatory policy. Among the comments were such jewels as “I’m 17. I’m not old. I want to listen to MADONNA!!!” and “I’m 18 years old and I want to hear Living for Love by Madonna! Open your heart, BBC!” – the latter referring to Madonna’s hit 80s track. “BBC Radio 1 — NOT LIVING FOR MUSIC”, proclaimed another. It’s impossible to find out how many such comments have come through as Radio 1 would – very cowardly – hide the first post from their timeline. It must have been well in thick thousands.

 

The whole thing is ridiculous and hypocritical, because we know that one day, when she passes away, BBC Radio 1 will suddenly go 180° to celebrate the music of “the undisputed Queen of Pop whose music we always loved blah blah blah”. Want an example? Michael Jackson. Humiliated and disrespected by many in his final years, then universally adored after death. I’m afraid Madonna’s going to share the same fate, but that’s how two-faced showbusiness is. Later this month, Madonna will appear in The Jonathan Ross Show again and I’m sure that this subject will come up again.

 

See also: Madonna’s #SecretProject