It would be going over very old ground to detail the demise of music teaching in schools. Where has the army of peripatetic teachers gone? I am sure that everyone reading this journal knows the problems only too well. Similarly, you are all well aware of the lack of classical programmes on television - even the Proms are broadcast in truncated form. The word from TV is that classical music does not get viewers. The word from the general press is that classical music and the classical record industry are in terminal decline.

The Classical Brits were the inspired idea of the BPI - The British Phonographic Industry - which is the umbrella organisation for the record industry. Following on the extremely successful Brit Awards for the mainstream pop industry, the idea was to use this brand to raise awareness of classical music and bring the most popular classical music to a wider public. There was no classical music in my own upbringing - I discovered its glories through TV advertising, use of classics in the movies, and, believe it or not, Radio 2 (or the Light Programme as it was known then). Yes, they used to play light classics in the 50s and 60s, and when I eventually ended up at the Royal Academy of Music as a first year student I was amazed how much classical music I recognised from the wireless!

The Gramophone Awards already cover the serious end of classical music, and the idea of the Classical Brits was to do something entirely different. We purposely steered away from what they were already doing. It was not easy to get the Classical Brits on TV - the audience for the Gramophone Awards when they had their one year on ITV was not large, and ITV were reluctant to take the risk. It was only the Brit brand that persuaded them to give it 'one last try'.

The number of awards was kept purposely small - so that there would be time to cover them on the TV - and the performers at the show were both populist and controversial by design - to provoke interest and debate and to generate column inches in the broadsheets and the music press. The entire exercise was aimed at the Classic FM audience, both actual and potential - to bring classical music to a new audience. Radio 3 listeners and Gramophone readers already know and love the classics and the show was not aimed at them (or you!). I would add that the nominations were drawn up by CNN, the independent body that administers all the Charts. To be nominated, each artist had to have released a recording during the eligibility period, i.e. the previous twelve months. The Young British Artist category was quite problematic as few artists under 21 had released products - so the age limit was raised (twice) to ensure a sensible list was available for the Academy. (I would add that the Academy consisted of representatives from a wide range of categories, including radio producers, the retail sector, distribution and marketing, the press, both glossy and broadsheets, in addition to those from the record companies.

With regard to the performers - while some may not like them personally, they sell more CDs than the vast majority of classical artists, fill concert halls around the world, and bring in the TV ratings. Lesley Garrett has done more to raise the profile of opera and operetta than any other British singer. Strange, perhaps, but true. Much as we may pull against it, she sells more CDs that the rest put together (with the exception of Charlotte Church, who must be seen as a one-off phenomenon!).

Please do not think that the classical record companies' commitment to the great and the worthy is in any way diminished, but if we are to continue to produce the high quality and eclectic product that you all know and love, we have to increase the overall audience and raise record sales to a level of profitability. At the moment, it is the soundtrack recordings like Titanic and compilation discs like The Only Classical CD you Need …ever… that pay for the worthy CDs of which I am sure you will all approve. Orchestral recordings are prohibitively expensive to produce and without cross-subsidy from pop, even the major labels could not afford to make them.

We were all delighted that the Classical Brits reached an audience of 4.485 million viewers - an audience share of 26% overall. Furthermore, in the ITV Audience Appreciation Index for Spring/Summer viewing the Classical Brits outscored the Baftas, Stars in their Eyes and Who Wants to be a Millionaire? with an appreciation rating of 77% (the average is usually 60-70%). It goes to show that while you did not approve, the overall feeling of the audience was very favourable. ITV/Carlton has agreed to extend next year's broadcast to 75 minutes (from one hour) and were very pleased with the response. It may be a small step - but it is a promising one from a company that declared classical music was the biggest turn off on television!

The winning CDs, and those of the artists who appeared on the show, all flew out of the shops in the great numbers in the days following the broadcast. The same cannot be said for the winners of last year's Gramophone Awards - everyone applauds their winners, but no one seems to want to buy them! Yes, there is a commercial element in these comments, but in the big wide world there would be no recordings at all if people did not want to buy them. Recordings are expensive to make and market, and unless we reach a new audience the number of serious classical recordings will continue to decline. We need to get classical music back onto the agenda, and even the bad press that the Awards received was good news - at least people in the broadsheets were talking about classical music again. The controversy was good for business, and, even if only a handful of converts was made, their enthusiasm will trickle through to their friends and families and eventually build to a flood over the coming years.

Here's to next year's Classical Brits - perhaps you might look a little more kindly at them taken in context.