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by james macgregor | August 3rd, 2001 | contact: james@netribution.co.uk

Beeb Drops Edinburgh Festival Show

The BBC has scrapped its long-running Edinburgh festival show, prompting a furious reaction from performers. Instead, the corporation will restrict its coverage of the world-famous event to its existing Newsnight Review programme on Friday nights.

Hosted by Kirsty Wark, festival Newsnight Review will be broadcast live from Edinburgh’s Point Hotel on BBC2, and is expected to feature high-profile reviewers including Ian Rankin and A L Kennedy.

Out of the Ark
Four half-hour comedy shows will also be broadcast from Edinburgh nightclub The Ark, presented by Royle Family star Ralf Little, and there will be a one-hour documentary on the life of photojournalist Lee Miller, the subject of an exhibition at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art.

However, the decision to use the Newsnight Review slot as the main festival coverage - rather than have a dedicated programme to showcase the five major festivals held throughout August - has met with dismay among those who see it as a further scaling-down of the BBC’s commitment to the arts.

Back to Bakewell
One former Edinburgh Nights employee said: "This takes the whole festival coverage back 14 years, when Joan Bakewell used to come up from London to tell the UK what was happening in Scotland. BBC Scotland might be producing these shows, but it is still a scaling-down of coverage - Edinburgh Nights used to be on three times a week, sometimes more. "

Liz Smith of the Assembly Rooms, one of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s biggest venues, said they were disappointed by the BBC’s decision, and said that the four comedy specials did little to quell their worries.

"The fact that we will get much less coverage is worrying . The coverage with Edinburgh Nights was always very good and it will be greatly missed."

Reduced Coverage
A spokeswoman for the Edinburgh International Television Festival added: " It sounds like the BBC is continuing to reduce arts coverage in general."

Last year, Edinburgh Nights was renamed the Edinburgh Review. There were four 40-minute shows, presented by Mariella Frostrup and supplemented by three Friday-night Fringe comedy specials.

The BBC has already come under fire for tampering with arts coverage, and has been accused of preparing to hive off arts programming to one of its proposed new digital channels,

Strong Package
However, BBC Scotland refuted suggestions that they were reducing the coverage of Scotland’s major arts festival. "We’ve got a strong package of quality programmes and we’re delighted to be producing Newsnight Review live from Edinburgh. It is an established arts slot and it has built up a sizeable following," said a spokeswoman.

" We have found that the public are moving away from magazine type shows and instead prefer more satisfying single subject programmes like the Lee Miller documentary .

"Newsnight Review will have a very strong representation among its guests, and we have one of the hottest names in comedy, Ralf Little, presenting for us as well. That, with coverage by Radio Scotland and our televising of the Tattoo, amounts to a strong package."

A spokeswoman for the Edinburgh International Film Festival backed the BBC’s move and said: "To us it’s quite a positive thing in using a programme format where they already have a dedicated arts audience."

 


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