Shrinking audiences, a cash crisis and rivals on the rise: what’s gone wrong at Tate?

Miss Elsie Palmer, or A Lady in White by John Singer Sargent at Tate Britain. The group claims its declining audience is not shrinking, just ‘becoming more selective’. Photograph: Guy Bell/REX/Shutterstock

When a national institution starts to sound like Spın̈al Tap, you know it’s in trouble.

Recently, Tate channelled the mythic rock band’s claim that its audience was not shrinking, just “becoming more selective”. In response to a decline in visitor numbers and a cash crisis leading to redundancies, the museum group emphasised “record numbers of young visitors” to Tate Modern (who cares about all those uncool visitors above the age of 35?).