Stop the music

SIR – Sir Roger Scruton (Comment, August 25) memorably describes the Albert Hall Promenade Concerts as “the last remaining argument for the BBC”, and correctly avers that “our world is awash with trivial noise that some mistake for music” in “restaurants, bars, public spaces, shops and even railway stations”.

He could have included television dramas and documentaries in that group, with the greatest offender being the BBC itself. Its unnecessary and intrusive “background music” drowns out the speech, rainforest sounds and other noises to which we are trying to listen – and which, along with the visual effects, are the whole point of the transmission in the first place.

John Birkett St Andrews, Fife