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| “We will be resting Jazz Now” Screengrab from BBC website |
Sebastian writes:
A press release at the end of last week presages a cut in the number of weekly jazz programmes on BBC Radio 3 from four to two. Late Junction which has been a Radio 3 late-night fixture ever since Roger Wright first asked Fiona Talkington to start it in September 1999, will become a once-a-week show.
Here is the key paragraph from the press release:
“On Fridays, Late Junction, a programme that explores the experimental boundaries of music, will move to a single two hour programme in a key slot on Friday evening, to kick start BBC Radio 3’s weekend for listeners. It will run from 11pm-1am. Jazz will continue to be well represented through Jazz Record Requests, J to Z, and on BBC Sounds which will bring together the best of Jazz performances and programmes from across the BBC. We will be resting Jazz Now and Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz. Music Planet will move from its Friday evening slot in turn, to Saturday nights from midnight-1am. We will also be making use of our unique partnership with The European Broadcasting Union to expand the Sunday night In Concert programme by 30 minutes, bringing listeners more of the very best of European music-making.”
The full Press Release is here
A Facebook group to co-ordinate the petitions against the Late Junction decision is HERE
There is also a petition against the axeing of Jazz Now HERE
Categories: News
In Germany worrying changes are also afoot. WDR in Cologne, which has had about 2 hours a day of jazz, is moving from a system of author/presenter programming to a playlist base from 1 April. Presenters will read scripts and no longer use their own knowledge. Perhaps not quite as bad as pure cuts, though not far off? Here are a couple of articles, one a bit more objective, the other (by the eminent Michael Ruesenberg) more polemical. Both in German. https://www.nmz.de/artikel/abschied-von-vertrauten-stimmen https://www.jazzcity.de/index.php/news/2289-jazz-kahlschlag-auf-wdr3