Monday, June 19th, 2000

Ian Parkinson
Acting Controller, Radio 1
BBC
Yalding House
152/156 Great Portland Street
London W1A 6AJ

Dear Ian,

Re: Andy Kershaw programme

Thank you for your swift response of 15th June - your resourcefulness does you credit. I am of course very pleased to finally hear that a home may yet be found for Kershaw on the BBC, although I appreciate that there is a world of difference between plans and talks and an actual regular slot. I have to say, however, that while I welcome the idea of the Kershaw programme moving to a place where it will be appreciated, I can see that this move will also be a huge blow to cultural diversity - how many of Radio 1's young listeners will chance upon Kershaw if he broadcasts on Radio 3?

I am glad that you have finally given a reason for Kershaw's sacking. You should be aware that neither in his standard responses to letters and emails, nor in his interview on Feedback did Andy Parfitt do this, and it seems astonishing to me that it has taken three weeks before any attempt was made to publicly rationalise this decision.

I was aware of Ian Anderson's comments in the uk.music.folk newsgroup, but I interpreted it in a rather different way from you. I saw it as a reflection of the poor support given to the Kershaw programme over the past few years, causing it to be less likely to attract new young listeners and culminating in the situation described by Ian. I have to say that I agree with Ian's assessment; that Radio 1 has reduced the programme to this state as a precursor to ending it entirely. You may also be interested to know that Andy Parfitt's recent claim on Feedback that there was no longer any such thing as a graveyard shift has been roundly rubbished by Radio 1's young listeners in the uk.media.radio.bbc-r1 newsgroup. Ian Anderson has invited me to point you to his latest Folk Roots editorial at http://www.froots.demon.co.uk/edsbox.html - I feel certain that the clarity with which the opinions there are expressed will prevent any misinterpretation.

So who are these old people that Kershaw played on his programme? Off the top of my head I can think of Eliza Carthy, Bill Jones, Trish Murphy, Kate Rusby, Teddy Thompson, all mainstays of the Kershaw programme and all of an age with your target audience, and with a direct appeal to this agegroup. Who is going to play them on Radio 1 now that Kershaw is gone? They're certainly not Gilles Peterson territory, and from the little you've told me of the new "One World" programme, I suspect they won't find a home there either. If it were the case that only old people listened to these young artists then surely we would never have had these young artists in the first place?

But I am especially interested in your comment about the "World Music as recognised by Andy Kershaw" as distinct from the "particular areas of world music that have more appeal to a younger audience" which will form the backbone of Gilles Peterson's programme and the new "One World" programme. You appear to be saying that the broad range of music played by Kershaw will no longer be featured on Radio 1, but in the recent Feedback interview Andy Parfitt gave us (or appeared to give us) a guarantee that there would be no reduction in diversity and that we would continue to hear the sort of music Kershaw used to play. Are you now telling us that this guarantee was in fact not what it appeared to be?

You dismiss the response to Kershaw's sacking as not overwhelming and go on to point to Radio 1's listener figure of 14 million, but surely you must accept that this is an unfair comparison? Kershaw's programme had been moved to the middle of the night, and therefore couldn't possibly command the same audience as a peak-time programme. It is therefore deeply disingenuous of you to point to your total listener figure and suggest that by comparison the response was inadequate. You must be aware that for every person who writes to complain about an act such as this, there are many more who disapprove just as strongly, even if they do not contact you. This is especially so in this case because of the perception of the Radio 1 Controller as being unresponsive; sending out a standard reply to every writer regardless of what points had been made, and showing no sign of being influenced in the slightest. Is it any wonder that many people believed complaining would be a pointless exercise?

Add to this the responses in the national press, which were 100% hostile to your action - I couldn't find a single article which approved of what you had done. Even you can't have failed to notice the sense of futility that pervaded many of the letters and emails to the BBC on this subject: the writers believed that you would probably ignore them, as indeed you have done. If listeners believed that they would be heeded, they would probably have written to you in even greater numbers. What threshold would the complaints have had to reach before you would respond to them? 14 million?

I have to repeat my charge that although you have been polite and even helpful (up to a point), the overwhelming impression being put out is of an uncaring management who are ignoring the views of their listeners. Am I wasting my time writing to you?

Yours sincerely

..........................

Lorcan Mongey