BBC’S deaf ears

SIR – Philip Roe (Letters, April 10) criticises the BBC for not televising the preliminary rounds of Young Musician of the Year.

Its treatment of the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition is similar: other than the briefest of snatches, it does not broadcast the preliminary rounds (three in total) at all – even though the judges take the competitors’ performances in those rounds into account. This is different from heats in an athletics competition, for example, where all that is achieved is progression to the next round.

To make matters worse, before the result is announced, the BBC asks well-known musicians to make predictions – which, as they will have been present only for the final performances, they get wrong. I have drawn this defect to the attention of the BBC, which claims to have noted my remarks. But nothing has changed.

Pudsey, West Yorkshire