This week the BBC announced the results of its Strategy Review, with the headline grabbing closure of two digital radio stations, 6Music and Asian Network, and a reduction in, online content. Does this signal the start of a period of significant change to the UK’s media landscape or is this simply tinkering on the fringes that most consumers won’t notice?

These changes have been announced as a wider debate rages about charging for online content, with speculation that The Times will do so from 1 May, the future of media regulator Ofcom and the ongoing struggle for print media to survive. The review is significant as a response to wider pressure to justify the spending of the licence fee.

News Corporation’s James Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture last summer accused the BBC of “land grabbing” and stifling competition. The Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland has suggested BBC Director General Mark Thompson has jumped before he was pushed by announcing this week’s cuts: “the BBC has decided its best strategy for self-preservation is to suffer a little pain now to avoid a lot of pain later.” The pain later is that which might be inflicted by a future Conservative government, which backs Murdoch’s view.

What does the BBC Strategy Review mean for UK consumers? Axed stations 6Music and the Asian Network demonstrate the diversity of programme and targeting that the BBC can offer and its commercial rivals can’t. Commercial radio would never create 6Music. I listen to it precisely because it doesn’t play a repetitive playlist that commercial stations do. These cuts could lead to a less diverse media with radio driving some listeners away to onto specialist services like Last.fm and Spotify.

The implications for the BBC are mixed. This week’s announcement may have aimed to meet favour with their future political masters, though Conservative culture spokesman Ed Vaizey has u-turned his initial support for the closure of 6Music in the face of a sustained celebrity, Facebook and Twitter campaign. 

Like every publicly funded body the BBC expects to face funding cuts in future years as governments try to reign in public spending. I expect that most of the BBC’s UK consumers won’t notice much difference with the changes announced this week, though I do expect that will be part of a wider series of changes affecting the UK media landscape. In the long run, especially if 6Music survives, many will forget the specifics of the BBC’sStrategy Review. The reasons why the BBC has acted are far more significant and are likely to lead to further changes that willbe widely felt as the BBC continues to be held accountable for its public role.