Weelittledrummer,
To clear up one point - I am a Brit (sort of) who moved to Ireland about 8 years ago, so I have an idea of the differences.
When the club scene was healthier the Beeb responded (albeit mostly on 3rd prog as it was) with more programmes on traditional music - not a huge amount but certainly more than now. I treasure my copies of The Song Carriers, Folk Music Virtuoso, The Lament, Voice of The People, and all the others that were broadcast from the sixties right into the late eighties, as well as Folk on Two and the other magazine programmes, not to mention offshoots from folk such as The Radio Ballads.
Now that a general malaise seems to have set in and and anything goes anyhow approach is the order of the day they don't bother, and I'm not sure that I blame them.
It really doesn't solve anything to accuse the media of indifference and hostility if these are the vibes they are getting from the folk scene.
Frank,
I assume you are referring to the U.S. - over here we had officianados like MacColl, Lloyd, Charles Parker, John Levy, Lucy Duran, Deben Battacharia with access to radio and TV - nowhere near as much as we would want, but certainly more than at present.
TV and radio are (particularly radio) perfect medias for the communication of both music and research, there's no reason why people shouldn't listen, learn and participate, we use books for the same thing, don't we?
Jim Carroll