Dear Mail List

Just at a time when the wealth of music available to everyone finds young people making connections between previously disparate approaches for themselves, and beating down ancient barriers of culture and history, BBC radio is travelling in the opposite direction, by scrapping the very shows that embody that ideal.

Luke Turner of The Quietus and The Guardian makes the case for LATE JUNCTION and shows like it below, so maybe you’d like to help him by signing his on-line petition

Stew

“Apologies for the impersonal / bcc nature of this email but I’m trying to get this out and wide as fast as possible this week.

We protest the dramatic cuts to Radio 3’s programming of specialist music. These have been made to “enhance the distinctive nature of the network”. The opposite is happening: the distinctive parts of the network are being dismantled.

British jazz is experiencing a renaissance. Thrilling folk acts are attracting broader audiences. Electronic and experimental music is thriving, and boundaries between genres, mediums and scenes are being dissolved and swirled into ever more exciting permutations.
But in the month of its sold-out festival in London, the brilliant Late Junction, which supports new and existing artists from the worlds of experimental music, folk, jazz and beyond, is being reduced from three shows a week to one.
Jazz Now and Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz are being ‘rested’. Music Planet, Radio 3’s only dedicated programme exploring music from around the world, is being moved to a post-midnight slot, and having its running time cut by half. And while we welcome the unique format of Unclassified, it only has an hour in the schedules. It is not enough.

The remit of BBC Radio 3 is explicit: to “appeal to listeners of any age seeking to expand their cultural horizons through engagement with the world of music and the arts”. The disappearance of the programmes above – fertile, adventurous spaces showcasing the creativity and diversity of many genres – goes against this entirely.

Local, national and international culture benefits so much from these programmes.
Music-lovers tune to make new discoveries and build new creative communities. Music-makers rely on these shows as lifelines to support and share their music with enthusiastic audiences, both nationally and internationally.
New works and unexpected collaborations have happened either directly or indirectly due to these shows. This flourishing cultural ecosystem will be damaged, and musicians’ careers profoundly affected, as opportunities for their work to be experienced by the mainstream at home and abroad will be drastically reduced.

We urge Radio 3 to think again about how the changes they are making will profoundly affect the broader cultural landscape, and reconsider their decisions. The BBC’s enduring principles – to inform, educate, and entertain – live and breathe in the shows they are pulling apart.

There’s an online petition which we encourage you to sign and share here: Don’t cut BBC Late Junction!.

A Facebook page collating other petitions – as there are a few – has also been put up by Sliz Gillard, who was involved in the Late Junction festival, to try and connect all efforts and gain momentum: Alan Davey’s announcement of the scheduling changes can be found here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/27517e7d-3e1c-4fba-8f29-cc5e84457fac