The managing director of the London Philharmonia is sounding the alarm about what he views as an unstoppable erosion of British high culture under the juggernaut of commercially-driven pop. “Thanks to a relentless diet of pop and dance music, television theme tunes and a growing cultural ignorance, most of his potential audience only hears classical music at the cinema. If it were not for foreign visitors and tourists, he claims, most classical concerts in Britain would be played to almost empty halls.”