I just had a look at Norman Jay's website and he has a bit to say about it - mirrors what many of us are saying here in the US I cut-n-pasted it so sorry if it breaks up funny. See the whole thing at http://www.musiclinks.co.uk/normanjay/html/main.cfm?w=0
Here it is: COMMENT: Just when I thought I'd had a reasonable week, I'm disappointed (and saddened) to hear that DANNY RAMPLING's long running and absolutely fabulous LOVE GROOVE DANCE PARTY show on BBC Radio One is to come to and end. Quite why is anyone's guess and is open to a fair amount of speculation. I sincerely hope that it was HIS decision to leave after nearly seven brilliant years and not the other way round. I for one know more than most just how vicious and political things can get inside a radio station. It would appear that he is being 'replaced' by according to certain industry sources "the hottest name in dance music right now". Well now, is that right? - not from where I'm standing he isn't. I don't mean that in any kind of disrespectful way to his 'successor' - a very popular (it has to said) hard house/trance deejay called FERGIE who I've had the pleasure of meeting on a few ocassions and is a genuinely nice enough and talented bloke so I don't think anyone will personally begrudge him his successful appointment. Who can blame him?. To me it all just smacks yet again of the continual marginalisation of mobo (music of black origin) by the powers that be over there. It begs the question; what an earth are the music programmers at BBC Radio One thinking about?. Do they really believe that it's huge multicultural national dance audience wants even MORE of the same? - I doubt it. I was under the impression that they had a public obligation to give 'fair and reasonable' exposure to ALL aspects of popular mainstream dance music on their dance output. To me and thousands of other Radio One listeners, I suspect there will now be even LESS mobo (ooh - must be carefull what I say here) on Radio One now that Rampling is going. They will try and have us believe that their music policy changes reflect the increasingly shifting music tastes of their younger 'target' audience (what with even MORE trance? - yeah right). It hasn't escaped the notice of astute (and honest) observers of our vibrant and varied house scene here in the UK that week in, week out, there has been a steady and noticeable DECLINE in attendances at some of the country's leading hard/prog/tech/trance type house clubs for some time now which could possibly explain why some of that scene's more 'high profile' main room players are now trying desperately to musically re-invent themselves (nothing wrong in that) by trying to play 'funkier' house sets in 'smaller' rooms in 'cooler' clubs (and with loads more girls too) with the very same style of music often championed by Rampling on his radio show whose services they are now dispensing with (how ironic!). It's been very much my own personal experience of observing and listening to a lot of national radio over the years that the more things change, the more they remain the same. I think Radio One will discover to their ultimate cost that to replace Ramplings' influential LGDP with yet another tech/prog/trance/dark/tribal/hard house type of show (aren't all their other deejays playing that kind of stuff already? (yawn) is a VERY retrograde step and will lose them an awful lot of quality listeners in the short...AND long term. A decision which simply beggars belief if it emerges that it was THEIR decision to 'offload' him. Ramplings' impending departure from the country's ONLY national dance music broadcaster is a 'body blow' to everyone who loves and apreciates the quality end of funky house music. You can see the depth of feeling amongst Danny's listeners against Radio One's decision by visiting his message board at http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/h2/h2.cgi? --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]