I thought that Chris Sweeney sounded polished and prepared. Stuart Thomas, however, ummed and erred like a good un. One interesting feature of the interview (in my view anyway) was the fact that Chris took him to task on the matter of fulfilling the BBC Trust requirements for local radio, which specify that after peak hours,( which is defined as after 7 pm) local radio SHOULD include specialist music programming. He however argued the point and suggested that "local radio CAN include specialist music" .. two very different words. SHOULD is a proscriptive - CAN is not. So, by substituting the (incorrect) word "can" he is suggesting that he/they have carte blanche NOT to include it. Very very different.

To suggest that a couple of Jez Lowe songs (nice though that may be) lost within the morass of a drive by type programme, comprising odds and ends of non-local news items, MOR music and interviews with psychic poodles (honestly!) means that they are not abandoning folk music is ridiculous to say the very least. Whereas some of us would queue up (and did) to listen to a well produced programme of varied folk music,with local news regarding the music concerned, I hardly think that we would care to sit and listen to the wallpaper/bland stuff that is now being served up in it's place on the off-chance that there might, just might (if we were very very lucky) be one or two songs played somewhere in there. Like finding a needle in a haystack!

He also suggested that they were still including other specialist music - the one being cited being a programme for new music from local bands IIRC.Hardly specialist music. They have also retained a soul music programme (which I notice he did not mention). The latter has no apparent specific local connections. Since some of the excuses for removing the programme were that "folk music did not originate" in the area one wonders at the retention of the soul music programme.

I was amused that he referred to the folk fraternity being well organised. As I observed elsewhere, on the whole in my experience, we are actually quite compartmentalised normally. In this instance it started off as individual anger and views being vented, coalescing into a Facebook support group which now has over 2100 members (a number being ex-pats or others around the globe, or in other parts of the country who had had the opportunity to listen to the programme on line - notwithstanding it's local nature. A reflection of the quality of the programme which has been ditched).

So sorry Mr Thomas - still not impressive.