Morning all ☕️
I’d been holding off setting a hand-in date for our “Save the Iain Anderson Show” petition until I heard back from Victoria Easton-Riley, or anyone else at the BBC.
Late on Friday she emailed me (see screengrab 📸) to say that, due to work and holiday commitments, she’s unable to arrange a meeting. Her reply mirrors those the BBC has been sending to our MPs and MSPs — and, for me at least, raises more questions than answers – See below.
So this week I’ll pull together a full handover pack for the petition 📄.
I’m proposing:
Monday 29 December at 12 noon 🕛.
Roads and car parks should be quieter, and if it’s a slow news day we might catch some media interest 📰. If anyone reading this has useful contacts, a wee nudge would be very welcome 🙏.
That’s the plan. Hand-in day and time set ✅. It would be lovely to see some familiar faces in that no-man’s-land between Christmas and New Year 🎄➡️🎆. Plenty of cafés and parking nearby if you fancy a coffee or tea beforehand ☕️.
AREAS OF CONCERN👇
• The headline figure of 33 hours of specialist music sounds encouraging, but only around 22.5 hours appear to be fully curated. We need clarity on how this total is calculated.
• It’s unclear whether Up Late (playlisted) or Get It On (listener-generated) are included in that 33 hours.
• The claim that this represents 50% specialist output is worrying — many of us would expect that figure to be far higher.
• There are serious concerns that opportunities for emerging Scottish artists will shrink, with fewer programmes offering consistent, curated space.
• Several shows remain largely inaccessible to new or unsigned artists, meaning real opportunities are limited despite the headline hours.
• Across the week, only a small number of slots genuinely support new Scottish music, often with narrow criteria.
• Despite the hour count, the practical opportunities for new music are slim.
• And finally, questions remain about the “audience data, feedback and research” being cited — feedback from who? Two late-night presenters have been recommissioned, while others (including Iain, Billy and Natasha) were dropped, with no clear explanation of the criteria.