In response to Granthampie, you can't just say that this is the BBC being anti-British because they are dropping country, jazz and irish programmes as well. One of the programmes being retained - The Beat - is mostly indie, rock and dance music so is just as 'British' as Folkwaves, and the black and asian programmes have a news and community information element rather than just being specialist music.

Wgere I think there is a problem, as I've posted before, is that the BBC have boxes to tick to make sure they cover traditional music and culture in the celtic nations - there is no threat to the folk shows on Radios Scotland, Wales and Ulster - but not in England. There is no 'Radio England' so it is down to local radio to cover traditional English culture, but they don't seem to see it as part of their remit (so for example Radio Scotland keeps its weekly bagpipe programme but Radio Manchester can happily drop its weekly brass band programme). The only way to challenge this would be through the BBC Trust or the senoir managers.