AS hinted at in last week's column, the news that Alistair Anderson's folk show on Radio Newcastle has been scrapped, came as a big blow to a local folk scene that is currently thriving as never before.

It also looks like folk and other "minority" music will be excluded from other Radio Newcastle shows, like Julia Hankin's afternoon slot, which in the past have been so accommodating and encouraging to performers and promoters in the region.

All this coincides with the announcement that the BBC will no longer be sponsoring the annual Cambridge Folk Festival, and that its prestigious Young Folk Musicians competition is also suspended, bizarrely due to the recent dodgy goings-on with TV phone-in competitions on various channels.

Whether next February's BBC Folk Awards are in jeopardy remains to be seen. The powers that be will tell you that these decisions are "audience-driven" and reflect popular opinion, but maybe the BBC executives should try telling that to the thousands of folk music fans currently flocking to festivals and concerts around the UK, buying CDs by the truckload and turning off the bland mush slopping out of their radios, mush that they are unwittingly paying for from their licence fees.

Meanwhile, live folk music this week comes from Realtime at Skelton's Duke William tonight, Mad Agnes and Jon Burge at Reeth Memorial Hall tomorrow, and George Welsh at Birtley RAOB club next Wednesday.

Finally, local writer Richard Grainger presents a new folk production called The Journey Home at Whitby Pavilion on Friday. All thoroughly deserve your support.