As 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.
The table published with your article assigned acts to regions according to where “they are generally recognised to have started their careers”, but it is hardly surprising that musicians, wherever they come from, move to London for such a start.
It is certainly the case that there has been something of a London-centric movement if you look at Mercury winners: by my reckoning, in the first 10 years only two of the winners came from London; since then, the statistic is 12 winners from London to 10 from everywhere else. But then this reflects the creativity of London’s black music scene, which provided nine of the 12 winners.
Simon Frith
Hexham, Northumberland
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