Domenica 18 Nov 2007, 5:00

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1413/1250822095_747f7a621d_m.jpg

part of the audience at Raw Talent's Unsinged Stage at Leeds Festival this year

As of last week, BBC Radio Leeds stopped broadcasting what had been BBC North's participation in new music across the region. Alan Raw the presenter and Katie Noone the producer had set up and have been running the two hour programme in the Radio Hull studio and hundreds of artists have been featured in its five year life. Most weeks there is a live band session of (usually) three songs and often an acoustic artist as well. Demos and lots of full releases are played too. A new music stage at Leeds Festival for the last three years and a link with BBC Radio One's Introducing network have been two of its major achievements so far.

Since BBC Radio Leeds' recent decision Raw Talent has been cut back to being a local station serving Humberside and Lincolnshire - accessible to the world via a low quality realaudio stream, but otherwise hidden under a very big bushel. Katie Noone has said they still want to focus on Leeds music, but clearly there is a problem getting the enthusiastic involvement on the basis of the web presence alone.

It seems to me that no musician from Leeds or West Yorkshire should be happy about this loss of a high quality opportunity to present their music to a potentially large local audience – whether in terms of playing a live session or having their recordings played on air. The BBC is a public resource that can reflect every kind of music and every kind of aspiration, from outright pop to the fiercest diy/collectivist.

So I would call on all the artists, and all admirers of these artists to make their feelings known (whatever those feelings are) by contacting the station ( email leeds@bbc.co.uk ) or by looking at an on-line petition and (if they agree with it) signing it and leaving a comment - as individuals reflecting their own particular take on it.

The petition is on-line at http://www.gopetition.com/online/15311.html

Many of these artists have had their music played, or have been into the studio to do live broadcasts, others could/should have done so - many more are involved too:

¡Forward, Russia!
Ali Whitton
Authors of Malicious Code
Being 747
Benjamin Wetherill
Bilge Pump
blah blah tin
Bonsai Kittens
Buen Chico
Captain Wilberforce
Cardboard Cowboy
cleckhuddersfax
Cowtown
David Thomas Broughton
Downdime
Dragon Rapide
Duels
Dugong
Eliphino
Farming Incident
FortDax
fran rodgers
Ghost Fleet
GRAMMATICS
Herdwhite
Hood
Humanfly
i concur
iLiKETRAiNS
Instant Species
itch
Jon Gomm
Kava Kava
Laboratory Noise
Laura Groves
Loqui
Monster Killed By Laser
Mother Vulpine
Mucky Sailor
Napoleon IIIrd
Nikoli
Paloalto
Parisman
pattern theory
Paul Marshall
Peasman
Penny Broadhurst
Pifco
Polaris
Printed Circuit
Quack Quack
Random Number
Rob Nichols
Samsa
Send More Paramedics
Shatner
Silverlode
Sky Larkin
Sp3ccylad
Stateless
sword drawings
That Fucking Tank
The Butterfly
The Delian Mode
The French Defence
The Lodger
The Lucida Console
The Pattern Theory
The Scaramanga Six
The Somatics
The Sunshine Underground
The Terminals
The Voltaires
The Wedding Present
The Wind-Up Birds
This Et Al
Unexploded Shells
Vessels
Vibracathedral Orchestra
We're Not The Cool Kids
Wild Beasts
Wintermute
worriedaboutsatan
XI
Yes Boss

If you spot a West Yorkshire artist who is missing from the list - please please please add their name (with the tags around their name) in a comment in this thread.