Jazz And The Public Purse – MusicTank Debates The Future

19th January 2010, location tba

• MusicTank Announces Next Debate: Jazz On The Beeb – A Love Supreme Or Kind Of Blue?
• 2 Jazz Services-Funded Reports Launched:
• “The Value Of Jazz In Britain: Two”
• “The BBC – Public Sector Radio, Jazz, Policy And Structure In The Digital Age”

The University of Westminster’s music business network MusicTank continues its series of think tanks with a discussion of the future of UK jazz, focusing in particular on the role to be played by the BBC and other publicly funded bodies.  Leading jazz support network Jazz Services will be launching two significant new reports at the event, and inviting discussion with the reports’ authors.Speakers will include Chris Hodgkins (Director, Jazz Services), Professor Stuart Nicholson (author, lecturer and journalist), and Mykaell Riley (Head of Music Production, University of Westminster).  Other speakers from the worlds of broadcasting and jazz will be confirmed closer to the event.The first report will set the scene with an overview of the economic standing of jazz in the UK.  The second will focus in more depth on the impact of public sector broadcasting policy on jazz, and will examine the needs of jazz – and by extension other niche genres – in a changing digital broadcasting environment.“The Value Of Jazz in Britain Two”(Mykaell Riley and David Laing)Jazz services published the original “The Value Of Jazz in Britain” in December 2006.  The report showed that the annual turnover of the jazz sector of the British music industry was almost £88 million in 2004-05.  This report follows up these findings by comparing the original statistics with those from 2008.  Factors including record sales, funding and other economic indicators will be assessed, and a picture of the changing face of jazz in Britain will be revealed.Mykaell Riley is Head of Music Production at the University of Westminster.  David Laing is the author of several books on popular music and a former editor of Music Week.“The BBC – Jazz, Policy and Structure in The Digital Age”(Stuart Nicholson, Emma Kendon and Chris Hodgkins, foreword by John Fordham)In the eyes of many in the British Jazz economy, the BBC is no longer supporting jazz to the extent that it could, and many feel, should.  This paper examines the specific needs of jazz, with its particular emphasis on live performance, and how these needs are being met by the BBC in comparison to other European public broadcasters. The issues affecting jazz impact upon broadcasting policy for all niche genres, including classical and opera.  The report also suggests a solution that maximises DAB’s potential to deliver targeted, niche digital radio programming to what is claimed to be a hungry yet largely under-served audience and as such, attunes well to the Government’s recent Digital Britain report.Professor Stuart Nicholson is a lecturer, broadcaster, journalist and author of six books on jazz, including Is Jazz Dead: or Has It Moved to a New Address. Chris Hodgkins is director of Jazz Services and Emma Kendon a trustee.