BBC Scotland Music Show Cuts

It has just been announced by BBC Radio Scotland that the weekly two hour show, ‘Classics Unwrapped’, presented by Jamie MacDougall, is to be axed, supposedly for financial reasons. In addition, ‘Jazz Nights’ fronted by Seonaid Aitken, and ‘Pipeline’, the programme devoted to pipe music, are also to be cut. This represents a huge chunk of Radio Scotland’s output of non-mainstream music, which is already minimal, and is an assault on listener choice, based on no real evidence.

Sir James MacMillan and Nicola Benedetti have shown a lead in a campaign to reverse these cuts, and the Edinburgh Music Review would like to add its condemnation of this outrageous decision. Our writer, Brian Bannatyne-Scott, was recently interviewed on ‘Classics Unwrapped’ about his latest CD, ‘Songs of Edinburgh’, with music by Tom Cunningham and words by Alexander McCall Smith, and on that same programme were sections about a wonderful blind Scottish pianist and Lorna Anderson’s impressions of Scotland through music. Why the BBC should choose to get rid of such a varied and informative programme is beyond us, given that the supposed savings are infinitesimal in the BBC budget generally. Compared to the massive sums spent on sports, especially football, one has to question the rationale behind this decision, and surmise whether there is some hidden agenda here. The famous saxophonist, Tommy Smith, has thrown his weight behind a campaign against the cut to ‘Jazz Nights’, and we also support his attempts. 

There is an online petition to sign at www.change.org  We encourage our readers to find it and sign too. These programmes are too good to axe. Let’s save them!