Television executives must feel as if they are in an impossible situation these days. It seems they are told constantly to provide quality, intelligent entertainment but in an accessible and fun way that pulls in the viewers. The thing is, though, sometimes quality and intelligent things are fun all by themselves.

This year was the 30th anniversary of the BBC Young Musician of the Year. It has not only given a whopping career boost to lots of remarkable young performers, but has been one of the few chances - with the exception of the Proms - for licence-payers to watch classical music performed on television.

In previous years, the format was simple. There were five categories: keyboard, percussion, woodwind, strings and brass. Each was given its own hour-long programme; there was a short introduction to the players who then performed two or three pieces. This year, it was the same, but with one difference: we didn't hear them play. Well, not for longer than 15 seconds at a time, and not at all properly until the final.

For the first 40 minutes of each hour, we were shown footage of the young performers logging on to Facebook, getting a haircut, having lunch with friends to demonstrate that - gosh! - they're just like normal teenagers. The narrator was continually astonished they picked up their instrument at a very young age.

They are all certainly well-rounded and charismatic young folk, but their ordinariness isn't what made us tune in. These are incredibly gifted young musicians. It seemed somebody, somewhere was terrified the audience would switch off if they heard more than four bars of music at a time. When, in the closing 15 or 20 minutes, we got to hear some music, it acted almost as a background to the judges' deliberations.

But this is BBC4, the channel that is supposed to give us culture and documentaries with a little more depth. Couldn't we hear at least one full piece of music?

The concerto final, where the performers played as soloist with a full orchestra, was an opportunity for the BBC to redeem itself. To be fair, there were more performances and it was a decent programme, with music taking centre-stage. Yet, on Sunday, we were only given highlights of the full concert, which took place on Saturday, and the competitors had returned to give another performance. The concerto final itself was broadcast on the internet.

The woodwind finalist, 14-year-old flautist David Smith, is a pupil at St Mary's Music School in Edinburgh. He played an exuberant modern piece, Ian Clarke's Zoom Tube, with remarkable flair, and then Jacques Ibert's Flute Concerto with delicate grace. He is exceptional, especially considering he has only played for four and a half years. He was pipped to the title, however, by another strong performer, 12-year-old trombonist Peter Moore from Manchester, who played Henri Tomasi's Trombone Concerto. The standard was as high as ever, and all five finalists were deserving of the award.

In Cardiff's Millennium Centre, some inane interviews again propped up the avoidance of actually hearing some music. "So, is anyone feeling nervous?" Funnily enough, yes, some of them were. That was followed with: "Is anyone feeling excited?" Then we were taken straight to the judges, seated in the centre of the audience with a spotlight on them (well, everyone knows that the judges are the real stars of TV talent contests, don't they?) First question: "Is anyone feeling nervous?" Oh dear The coverage has provoked a strong reaction with viewers. Yesterday there were more than 300 posts on the BBC Radio 3 message boards, many disappointed by what they felt was an avoidance of live classical music. One wrote: "Can we look forward to Wimbledon next month being a series of lengthy vignettes on the players and their wardrobes, with a couple of minutes of play highlights' at the close of the broadcast?"

There is a serious point to be made: these entrants, particularly in the earlier rounds, aren't being given the same opportunity as those of previous years. When Nicola Benedetti (who gave some thoughtful and calm contributions on this year's judging panel) won in 2004, it offered her a marvellous platform to prove herself as a gifted and serious performer. This year's competitors deserved the same level of exposure.

A spokesman for the corporation explained: "The BBC knows it has a loyal and committed classical music audience, but if this genre is to thrive and grow we also need to encourage and attract a new and wider audience. To help achieve this, we try new production techniques and presentation styles while also ensuring that our content is accessible across many different platforms.

"The week-long BBC4 television series was designed as an introduction to the competition. While we recognise that the music remains at the heart of the competition, alongside the performances and the competitors' obvious passion and commitment to music, we felt it equally important to profile the people involved and explore their backgrounds and interests."

Hopefully, the whole exercise might convince executives that orchestral music works well on TV. There's a lesson for BBC Scotland here, particularly with the Scottish Broadcasting Commission being set up: why not show an SSO concert some day? Or, if a whole performance is still too much for us, perhaps one of the RNSO's excellent Naked Classics concerts? Just a thought.