What should a 'cultural network' be doing?

[french frank]

Our era and that of 1960 are in many ways incomparable, for one thing modern R3 was launched back in 1967 as a Music channel, the Threes were more broadly cultural.

Is that correct? There was an outcry - led by Edward Greenfield and Peter Maxwell Davies - over what was to happen to the Third's speech programmes, which the Home Service/Radio 4 was unlikely to carry because it was a 'popular' service (in the sense that it was expected to attract the same large audience as the Home Service). The clear assurance was then given that only politics and current affairs would be transferred to Radio 4, and the new Radio 3 would continue to broadcast the talks and discussions which had been on the Third.

Radio 3 only became nominally a 'music station' in that, when it expanded to become a daytime service, rather than an evening service only, the daytime was taken up mainly by 'the music programme'; and when it became a 24-hour service, the night time was confined to music. It was becoming a music service by stealth, not by policy.

The precise advantage of a service that attracted a small audience was seen to be that it was free to cover esoteric subjects without impinging on the services intended for larger audiences. There was no sense that this 'excluded' anyone: it was available to anyone who had the interest, curiosity and wish to learn about subjects which had hitherto been outside their orbit.

[Zucchini]

Commercially based cultural broadcasting is possible but will not be a mass market any more than a public service but it may be a more profitable one per listener/viewer.

I'm lost; plse explain

[Tevot]

Hello there

Thanks Doversoul # 24 and French Frank # 25 and Gordon # 28

As to the question about the purpose of a cultural network - I'd venture that it should take its audience seriously and neither patronise listeners nor treat them as fools. It certainly shouldn't equate its success or reach by the number of emails or tweets it has received. It should be about the dissemination and discussion of the arts without gimmicks or apology.

Take for example the Arts Desk. http://www.theartsdesk.com/

Why can't the BBC Radio 3 attempt something similar via Radio / TV and the Internet? - The Arts Desk deals with at least 11 genres of interest potentially to a wide variety of audiences - The Arts Desk was given in 2012 an award for the best specialist journalism. That doesn't to me mean exclusive or elitist. Instead expert reviewers connected to people who wanted to tune in and share their passion for the arts - without banality.

It seems to me that they (Arts Desk) are what it says on the tin. They offer on their own terms clear and plain discussion, preview, critique, review, feedback, reportage, documentaries, histories and advocacy of what is going on out there- not just in London but in Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Glasgow, Belfast - wherever.

And indeed -Arts Desk indicates that Culture is much more than Music.

Personally, I find that the Arts Desk does not bombard me with ads, trivialities, or entreaties to text or phone-in to attract my attention or loyalty. Instead it is there for me to dip in and out of when I choose. It doesn't hector, discriminate or engage in special pleading... It is just there. Hopefully as a constant - whether I tune in tomorrow, next week, next month or year - if indeed at all.

Surely the BBC under its charter, with its talent, expertise, archives and resources can offer at the very least a comparable service under an ambitious and confident management?

We wait in hope.

Best Wishes,

Tevot

[aeolium]

The precise advantage of a service that attracted a small audience was seen to be that it was free to cover esoteric subjects without impinging on the services intended for larger audiences. There was no sense that this 'excluded' anyone: it was available to anyone who had the interest, curiosity and wish to learn about subjects which had hitherto been outside their orbit.

I have some sympathy with Gordon's regret for the loss of the Reithian idea that information and education should be aimed at a wide audience rather than a narrow one (as in the way, in the early years of the Third Programme, classical music and other arts programmes could also be heard on the Home Service). And surely there is a sense in which in practice a wider audience was lost to the Third Programme by its reputation, the belief that it was only for a minority. This was remarked for instance in the document which led to the reorganisation of the radio network and the start of Radio 3, Broadcasting in the Seventies: "There is a good deal of evidence that some listeners are deterred by the label 'The Third'. Programmes originated on the Third invariably attract bigger audiences when repeated on Radio Four. An evening concert of standard classical music will win more listeners on Radio Four than on the Third."

It could be argued that the same ghettoisation has happened in BBC television. Here is the remit for BBC Two when it started in the 1960s not long before that radio reorganisation: "BBC Two’s remit is to be a mixed-genre channel appealing to a broad adult audience with programmes of depth and substance. It should carry the greatest amount and range of knowledge-building programming of any BBC television channel, complemented by distinctive comedy, drama and arts programming." And I think for two decades or more, even though as with any TV channel there was a large amount of dross, BBC Two did fulfil that remit well, with plenty of documentaries, arts programmes, classical music and opera (with simultaneous broadcasts with R3 sometimes). And it's almost certain that the audiences it obtained for those programmes were much larger than those which are now obtained by equivalent programmes on BBC Four. So what has changed - the audience? Or is it that a culture in the BBC has decided that programmes like these cannot be provided without simplification and all the trappings of "accessibility" and then only to a minority audience? And isn't that view in some ways a different expression of the view propounded here that programmes like that are really only for a minority audience, not a wider one, the kind of view that holds that the mere presence of a serious arts programme or play on a popular station like R4 almost invalidates it for consideration?

[french frank]

I have sympathy with that view too. It is almost the same situation with television - viz. Jonathan Meades recent comment that his programmes would attract bigger audiences if they were on BBC Two: "My subjects are regarded as minoritarian and that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. On BBC2, I used to get 2.5 million to 3 million viewers; now I get a tenth of that on BBC4."

One possibility is that when programmes are well integrated in a single schedule, people will find themselves watching/listening without having to tune in specially to a special service to hear 'high culture'; and they find that they are interested, and it is 'accessible'.

I might suggest that some broadcasts are so awful, that integration wouldn't work anyway, because it does presuppose that the gap between the different types of programme is 'bridgeable' for a single audience. What Radio 3 is doing suggests it isn't: that people who have a serious interest in classical music simply don't listen to Breakfast (does that also mean that those who enjoy Breakfast won't, on the whole, enjoy Discovering Music?).

A further consideration would be: if certain types of programme/presentation are not 'accessible' to everyone, should they not be made available to anyone? But if you take the cost per listener hour of Radio 2 - which is so low it's barely visible on a bar chart - why should that not 'subsidise' a service like Radio 3 - whose cplh is a lot higher than average? Wouldn't that be what public service broadcasting was about?

[MrGongGong]

I have sympathy with that view too. It is almost the same situation with television - viz. Jonathan Meades recent comment that his programmes would attract bigger audiences if they were on BBC Two: "My subjects are regarded as minoritarian and that's a self-fulfilling prophecy. On BBC2, I used to get 2.5 million to 3 million viewers; now I get a tenth of that on BBC4."

I wonder if people really do associate TV content with channels in the way that broadcasters think ?
BBC2 is simply #7
and BBC4 is #15
on our digibox (i think, but don't spend a lot of time watching TV)
surely people roam about until they find something they like ?
or use a guide to find something they are interested in paying less attention to whether it says BBC 2 , 4 or Quest, Dave etc etc ?

[french frank]

surely people roam about until they find something they like ?

But if they're watching something they enjoy on BBC Two, they will tend to stay there as long as they like the next programme too. If it were really as random as you suggest, why do so few watch BBC Four, compared with One or Two? The argument goes round in a circle, since it suggests they do 'boycott' cultural programmes; and if the channels were mixed, people would then 'roam' searching for the programmes that were to their taste.

[aeolium]

I might suggest that some broadcasts are so awful, that integration wouldn't work anyway, because it does presuppose that the gap between the different types of programme is 'bridgeable' for a single audience. What Radio 3 is doing suggests it isn't: that people who have a serious interest in classical music simply don't listen to Breakfast (does that also mean that those who enjoy Breakfast won't, on the whole, enjoy Discovering Music?).

But that would not account for how it was 'bridgeable' during the first decades of BBC2 when I'm sure there were also awful programmes but when serious arts programmes would get much higher audiences than they do now on BBC4. And on R3 now people will pick and choose the programmes they want to listen to even if there are awful programmes like Breakfast. The difference is perhaps that a lot of people will never even think of switching to R3 because of the specialisation (like the situation with the Third Programme described in Broadcasting in the Seventies).

[Gordon]

Is that correct? There was an outcry - led by Edward Greenfield and Peter Maxwell Davies - over what was to happen to the Third's speech programmes, which the Home Service/Radio 4 was unlikely to carry because it was a 'popular' service (in the sense that it was expected to attract the same large audience as the Home Service). The clear assurance was then given that only politics and current affairs would be transferred to Radio 4, and the new Radio 3 would continue to broadcast the talks and discussions which had been on the Third.

Radio 3 only became nominally a 'music station' in that, when it expanded to become a daytime service, rather than an evening service only, the daytime was taken up mainly by 'the music programme'; and when it became a 24-hour service, the night time was confined to music. It was becoming a music service by stealth, not by policy.

I’m not sure about “correct” or not, what I meant was that the clearly dominant element in the shared channel taken as a whole after 1965 was music [see below]. Whilst modern R3 is a cultural channel it does not reflect culture as a whole because it is dominated by music, just one aspect of culture. BBC radio does not have a truly broad culture channel and if it doesn’t God help anyone else.

There is previous history to this: in 1957 3/N3 faced cuts as a result of which the Third Programme Defence Society [whatever happened t that?] was formed and its leaders included TS Eliot, Camus, and Olivier, all literary figures [what it had to do with Camus I’m not sure] having an interest in the spoken/written word. There was a lot of that in the 3/N3 schedule.

Yes, there was another outcry but not about more music but once again about the fate of the spoken word ie not “Talking about Music” etc but specifically literary works [see “Features & Drama” and “Talks & Discussions”] and cultural discussions of all kinds. Did this outcry extend to non-literary spoken word too - eg science talks like those of Fred Hoyle in the 50s - or just the specialist interests of poets, dramatists etc?

This gives some of the background to how the original 3rd evolved from 1946 to 1965 when the daytime “music service” was added using the same channel as the "3rd" and Network 3 [N3]. All that happened was that the serious music from the Home service was transferred leaving the original 3rd and N3 alone and so the separate identities of these elements were maintained, at least in principle. The extra music occupied what was empty schedule space. I’m not sure that this was “stealth”, that could be a post facto rationalisation [not that the BBC at any time has not been a political organisation]. If any policy existed it was to concentrate the serious music output in one place – rather un-Reithian - just as it concentrated the pop music in R1. Perhaps there was no similar policy about what to do with the other elements –ie speech. Had there been the spectrum would there ever have been enough in those elements to fill a channel, even part time? Today those elements are still shared across 3 and 4.

The precise advantage of a service that attracted a small audience was seen to be that it was free to cover esoteric subjects without impinging on the services intended for larger audiences. There was no sense that this 'excluded' anyone: it was available to anyone who had the interest, curiosity and wish to learn about subjects which had hitherto been outside their orbit.

Agreed. In principle, the new music service in 1965 never took anything away from the 3rd and N3. We would have to look at the actual schedules of the period to see exactly what happened to the allocations of time and also subject matter. This information will be found in the annual reports [and old Radio Times of you’re feeling keen]. One thing that has happened over time is the reduction in serious science programmes [eg look at the Reith lectures in the 50s].

The more disruptive changes to the BBC in 1967 were the result of the pop pirates as much as anything and the BBC took advantage of that to change its image and so rebranded all BBC national radio services in the series Rx. At that time [67] nothing in “R3” changed from what was on the channel before; as a whole now it was much more dominated by music – before 1965 3/N3 were almost 50% Serious Music already - IOW it was already a “Music channel” judged by hours allocated. What happened on the changes of 1970 was that the identities of the elements of the channel were merged and 3/N3 lost. Does the content in, for example, today’s In Tune constitute spoken word or make a contribution to it? There is discussion [of sorts] but it isn’t very deep is it!!

The decision to close down the Third Programme was opposed by many within the BBC, some of them senior figures. Within the music division, a 'BBC rebellion' gathered force, with its most vocal members including Hans Keller and Robert Simpson. Ultimately, however, the attempt to prevent the culture-conscious Third being replaced by what Keller called "a daytime music station" proved unsuccessful. Interesting that musicians inside were opposed to a music channel!

[Gordon]

I'm lost; plse explain

Sorry if I was obscure. It was just the opinion that whilst commercial investors may be attracted to cultural media, and broadcasting in particular, the primary purpose of commerce is to make money ie profit. Anyone who enters commerce without this in mind has to have good reason for doing so.

The profit motive can be satisfied and exploited in many ways; one is to adopt a product for which demand is small but the profit margin is large [dare I say esoteric HiFi products?]. It is possible that "cultural broadcasting" falls into this category; somewhat similar to glossy magazines that cover expensive hobbies or lifestyles? Advertisers will support any route to high value customers ie the well heeled even in smallish numbers. Subscribers [ie direct funding] can also be persuaded by good marketing to part with money provided the "product" appears to be high value to them. Exclusivity is a powerful marketing tool. The subscriptions may be satisfactory to the service provider - he's got his returns - and to the subscribers wiling to pay but there is exclusion if that subscription is beyond the majority. Commercially this is of no consequence at all.

The licence fee is an enforced subscription, judged to be affordable for all [with concessions], providing a critical mass of funding so that the service provider can produce quality output and the majority of people will get something they want. It's down to social values - or cultural values - in the end.

[MrGongGong]

But if they're watching something they enjoy on BBC Two, they will tend to stay there as long as they like the next programme too. If it were really as random as you suggest, why do so few watch BBC Four, compared with One or Two? The argument goes round in a circle, since it suggests they do 'boycott' cultural programmes; and if the channels were mixed, people would then 'roam' searching for the programmes that were to their taste.

I wasn't suggesting it was totally random
more that i'm not sure people are bothered whether the channel they are watching has a 2 or a 4 after the BBC.
Given what kinds of things i'm interested in I probably do find myself watching things with a 4 more often than a 3
but they are all part of a spectrum.... thassorl

[mercia]

I wonder what the viewing figures for the Sky Arts channels are like. I should imagine a lot of people decamped 'over there' as soon as they became available.

[Gordon]

I wonder what the viewing figures for the Sky Arts channels are like. I should imagine a lot of people decamped 'over there' as soon as they became available.

Doubtless they did on a pick and choose basis - and why not in a "free" market, free but for a possible subscription? I doubt though that Sky actually makes any money out of it but then it doesn't need to because the transmission costs are marginal and the cost of the source material [that it doesn't produce exclusively for itself] may be shared among many others. Sky's existence is based on careful packaging of essential viewing of the majority - commercial advantage is in Sport and Movies, invest heavily in those and get exclusivity and your business plan is assured. All else is bunce and hence there is always something for everyone.

10 million homes at an average sub of £40 per month [£480pa] is a very healthy revenue stream [ca £5billion, comparable if not greater than BBC] delivered by your own relatively simple network and very few public service obligations. Why would it not afford a really good cultural channel that commissions original programming with virtually all public service attributes included?

[mercia]

thanks. my main reason for asking was that I am worried about Jonathan Meades losing 90% of his viewers since being moved from BBC2 to BBC4 - where have the missing 2.7 million gone ? are they watching whatever has replaced him on BBC2 ? have they gone to Sky Arts ? are they watching some of the hundreds more television channels now available that weren't available when he was last on BBC2 ? have they turned their attention to the New Culture that is competitive cookery ? are they watching him on the iPlayer where, perhaps, his viewing figures are not countable ? where are the missing Meadesites ?

[french frank]

thanks. my main reason for asking was that I am worried about Jonathan Meades losing 90% of his viewers since being moved from BBC2 to BBC4 - where have the missing 2.7 million gone ? are they watching whatever has replaced him on BBC2 ? have they gone to Sky Arts ? are they watching some of the hundreds more television channels now available that weren't available when he was last on BBC2 ? have they turned their attention to the New Culture that is competitive cookery ? are they watching him on the iPlayer where, perhaps, his viewing figures are not countable ? where are the missing Meadesites ?

Good questions, and probably all your suggestions are right in some measure. The viewers to worry about (in my view) would be the ones who stay with BBC Two to watch whatever happens to be served up, because they are the ones who would have been watching (slightly willy-nilly) a programme that they might never have deliberately chosen but who would have found enjoyment in something new. If BBC Four lost out to Sky Arts (or any other competitor channel), it may be that Sky was providing the better choice than the BBC?