LAST month's SIPTU statement about National Symphony Orchestra musicians' loss of confidence in the artistic decision making of management in RTE's music department seems to have taken station executives by surprise, writes Michael Dervan. The issuing of the statement, however, has to be taken as rather more than a very public expression of the musicians' long simmering discontent.

The wider context of the SIPTU gesture is, of course, the PIANO Report. This recommended the removal of the NSO from RTE, and has been on the desk of Arts and Culture Minister, Michael D Higgins, since January. RTE is unprepared to divulge details of its formal response to the minister, though these are believed to be in the nature of an RTE Guide like subsidiary to handle the performing groups. And, in spite of the obvious severity of PIANO's assessment of RTE's management of the NSO, the appointment of Alexander Anissimov as principal guest conductor (filling a post which had been left vacant for six years) has been a rather isolated gesture in the area of addressing known artistic and programming shortcomings.

There seems to be a belief at some levels within the station that the delay in ministerial response is an indication that. PIANO and its recommendations are snow dead. There's no doubt that the dauntingly quick time scale envisaged in the report has not been adhered to. But, according to departmental sources, PIANO is alive and well, ministerial deliberation is ongoing, and a solution to the knotty problem of freeing the NSO from its current shackles, will be incorporated in the broadcasting legislation to be unveiled early in the new year.