1 min read
ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard
I've been catching up with my recordings of this week's broadcasts on BBC4 of the category finals for BBC Young Musician of the Year. The final takes place tonight, but isn't being shown until tomorrow night on BBC2.
I'd like to be able to write that the standard is, as ever, extremely high. I'm sure it will have been. But I can't tell you that for sure because this year's coverage is even more appalling than in 2006. Let's ignore the fact that it's been hidden away on BBC4, and take on board the BBC's defence - that BBC4 allows it to have far more time devoted to it (five one hour daily programmes: brass, woodwind, percussion, strings and piano).
I actually think this is nonsense, because the whole point of BBC2 - indeed of publicly funded TV - is to provide this sort of programme and to make it widely accessible. If ever a programme was designed for BBC2, this surely is it. But lets accept the BBC's decision. Even on its own terms, the coverage has been abysmal.
Each programme lasts 60 minutes - but the first 40 minutes (at least) of each programme has been devoted to fly on the wall profiles of the contestants, with barely a note of music to be heard. For five or so minutes, this might be fine; but 40 minutes?
And then, when they do at last turn to the recitals which comprise the competition, we are not allowed to hear even one movement, let alone a full piece, in full. The extracts last a matter of seconds. And as if that isn't bad enough, the extracts are used simply as background to the jury's comments. We get to hear those in extended extracts, but the performances on which they are making their judgements, barely at all. Work that one out.
The BBC, of course, thinks its viewers are morons, incapable of listening to anything for more than two minutes, and that because classical music is dull, it has to find something else to tempt its moronic viewers to watch - to wit, the profiles of the musicians rather than the music they make.
And to think that the main justification for the license fee is that without it, minority pursuits will be denied coverage. Utter hypocrisy.