London’s dominance of the Mercury prize | Letter

Simon Frith writes that the lack of shortlisted acts from outside London referred to in an article reflects the capital’s dominance of the arts – which is getting strongerAs chair of the Mercury music prize judging panel from 1992 to 2016 (while living in Scotland), I always thought that its geography problem (Artists outside London ‘underrepresented on Mercury prize shortlist’, 16 October) was that the judges primarily lived and worked in London, wherever they were from originally. (The year with the most Scots acts on the shortlist was also the year with the most Scotland-based judges.)But this is an inevitable result of London’s long and increasingly dominant place in the arts business and, for example, the decline of BBC local radio – early panels included local radio DJs. Continue reading...

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