Chat show host Parkinson slams TV's 'Top Ten' music culture

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Chat show host Michael Parkinson, who is seen as one of the most influential figures in the British music industry, has slammed TV bosses for no longer allowing him to champion new music.

The veteran TV host, who will retire from his TV chat show after the latest series which begins on ITV on Saturday, said television was being run by people who knew nothing about music and were interested only in acts that made the top ten.

And in an interview with radio station theJazz to be broadcast this weekend, he accused them of wanting only box office name celebrities such as David Beckham and Charlotte Church, rather than the living legends he used to be allowed free rein to interview.

"We did a 70-80 minute show with Duke Ellington, which the BBC put out in its entirety. Can you see that happening now? They'd say Duke who? Not just the BBC but ITV, any of them. 'Duke who? Can you get David Beckham on with him? Charlotte Church singing, maybe?' Ah, the decline of British television."

Parky, 72, who was poached by ITV in 2004 after many years with the BBC, has broken a number of major acts over the past few years after featuring them on his chat show, including Jamie Cullum, Razorlight, Diana Krall and Michael Buble.

Razorlight's sales quadrupled after they were on his show and they found mainstream success.

Parkinson was named by Q magazine as one of the most influential figures in the industry along with label bosses and figures such as Eminem.

Speaking to theJazz presenter Helen Mayhew for her My Jazz programme to be broadcast tomorrow, he said there had been a change for the worse in the sort of performers who are allowed on his shows.

"In the seventies when I first started, I would have on - as regular guests - Oscar (Peterson), Woody Herman, Buddy Rich. Duke Ellington was there. All were acceptable in those days.

"No one would raise an eyebrow and say why are you not having the top of the pops on?

"Nowadays if you suggest somebody like that, they say 'ooh I don't know ... who? What's he done?'

"It's sad. There's a generation of people running broadcasting, running television particularly, nowadays who have no musical culture beyond that which exists in the top ten."