from Jonathan King

This is my regular annual letter to those currently in charge of the British music industry. I suspect it will descend into the bin unread.

Why? Because, sadly, none of you care about the music industry. Ageing, bored, coming to the end of your careers, trying to keep hold of your job as young contenders move up the ladder, the last thing you want is to have to bother about the state of British music - or global music, come to that.

And the best excuse in the world to ignore any sensible contributions is that they come from me. Even older, even less in touch, and a Vile Pervert to boot.

But I did single handedly save the industry after the last disaster (and named The Brits - in case you don't know, I thought of it as an acronym for British Record Industry Trusts Show). The current disaster is less obvious, suffocated by things like Streaming and Piracy. But for God's sake, get someone (I'd suggest Russell T Davies) to come in and save The Brits.

Make it entertaining. Original. Full of clever ideas (I'd have asked the Pointless boys to host it with questions about hits and stars past and present).

For God's sake, put some music back into it. I scrapped Hosts for Voice Overs (by Simon Bates) which allowed me to include 30 minutes more music (in small, digestible snippets) - some of it even by unsigned acts (that pissed off the majors). Don't let artistes praised for talent in music speak (they are usually shit at talking, especially when their only ability is being pretty).

If it's good, it will get ratings. It will boost sales. It will make people who have never heard much of the music go out and listen to it.

Then you can get on with solving the other ghastly industry problems.

love Jonathan King