What should a 'cultural network' be doing?

[Honoured Guest]

Another factor in the "Meades missing millions musings" is that BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Channel 4, ITV1 and BBC3 now (in the digital tv era) ALL broadcast their prime flagship programmes in the same 9.00 to 10.00 slot and their lighter flagship programmes in the 8.00 to 9.00 slot. So, people who usually watch tv live-as-broadcast (with or without switching channels) now miss many more of the "best" programmes than they did in the olden days, when the equivalent "best" programmes were transmitted one after the other on a handful of channels.

The present broadcasting pattern has the advantage that very little flagship original programming is consigned to late broadcast hours. Incredible as it would be to a 1980s BBCtv viewer, there are now only five BBC1 and BBC2 flagship tv programmes broadcast after 10.30pm - Match of the Day, The Graham Norton Show, Question Time, Newsnight and Imagine.

With modern home recording technology, it's easy to view several programmes all broadcast at the same prime time, so the modern broadcasting pattern has improved accessibility to all the programming.

However, many people can't manage the effort to keep track of all the channels which broadcast programmes they would very much like. (On a side note, hence the increase in cross-channel trails!!) So, these dimwits or lazybones tend to be unaware of some of the programming which they would most appreciate.

[french frank]

Another factor in the "Meades missing millions musings" is that BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Channel 4, ITV1 and BBC3 now (in the digital tv era) ALL broadcast their prime flagship programmes in the same 9.00 to 10.00 slot and their lighter flagship programmes in the 8.00 to 9.00 slot.

True, but that wouldn't prevent the BBC broadcasting his series on BBC Two (the last one was in 2007, since when there has been almost one series per year on BBC Four).

My guess is that the thinking now is that, although a (cultural) programme would reach more people on BBC Two than on Four (just as the Proms reached more listeners on the Home Service than the same concerts on the Third Programme) - and therefore one would think that there is 'public value' in putting them on mainstream services - it is deemed that they don't reach enough people for those mainstream slots, compared with, say, a hospital drama, so they're shunted off to the channel which attracts smaller audiences.

I take it that was the reason that the 'lighter' Proms concerts were moved from BBC Two to BBC Four last season: the BARB ratings weren't good enough.

[teamsaint]

Another factor in the "Meades missing millions musings" is that BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, Channel 4, ITV1 and BBC3 now (in the digital tv era) ALL broadcast their prime flagship programmes in the same 9.00 to 10.00 slot and their lighter flagship programmes in the 8.00 to 9.00 slot. So, people who usually watch tv live-as-broadcast (with or without switching channels) now miss many more of the "best" programmes than they did in the olden days, when the equivalent "best" programmes were transmitted one after the other on a handful of channels.

The present broadcasting pattern has the advantage that very little flagship original programming is consigned to late broadcast hours. Incredible as it would be to a 1980s BBCtv viewer, there are now only five BBC1 and BBC2 flagship tv programmes broadcast after 10.30pm - Match of the Day, The Graham Norton Show, Question Time, Newsnight and Imagine.

With modern home recording technology, it's easy to view several programmes all broadcast at the same prime time, so the modern broadcasting pattern has improved accessibility to all the programming.

However, many people can't manage the effort to keep track of all the channels which broadcast programmes they would very much like. (On a side note, hence the increase in cross-channel trails!!) So, these dimwits or lazybones tend to be unaware of some of the programming which they would most appreciate.

How so? People without recording technology or internet( admittedly few) are missing key shows due to a programming decision.
The reason the BBC programmes key shows concurrently in prime slots on all channels is surely to do with a ratings war with non BBC outlets.
In fact with easy accessabilty to recording, iplayer etc, it ought, in theory to give the BBC he opportunity to broadcast flagship programmes away from prime slots, (since people will catch up anyway), whilst using to prime slots to deliver all that stuff they they have to but isn't yet popular, or to develop audiences.

Do people REALLY struggle with which show is on which channel?
Dimwits and lazybones? if it really is too hard for some people to figure the schedules, then perhaps it is the programming system at fault. Or perhaps the BBC is trying to dump the dim and lazy demographic, as they have the music, arts, football, single drama, cricket audiences.

[french frank]

I've just been going throught the BBC Report for 1959/60, which Gordon has kindly sent. It's pretty clear what a 'cultural network' would have been doing then, though the radio output is divided between the Home Service and the Third/Network 3. I may get tired and go to bed before I've finished outlining all the content that might be included.

To start with, television seemed to have at least one opera/ballet per month, as well as other music-related programmes; in addition, there were plays by Anouilh, Shaw, Bulgakov, John Mortimer, John Arden; serials by A. Bennett, Trollope, Wells, Dickens, Austen; 'experimental' plays by Turgenev and Thomas Mann.

On 'Sound Radio', the Home Service had a great deal of celebrated drama: Strindberg, Shakepeare, Synge, Pirandello, Rostand, Chekhov; the play for a star series had Giraudoux, C.Fry, S. Maugham, Priestley, Greene, with stars like M. Redgrave, Edith Evans, Sybil Thorndike, Dorothy Tutin. "Also" there were works by Dürrenmatt, Pasternak, Wesker, Gerhart Hauptmann.

Over on the Third: Menander, Sophocles, Schiller, Ibsen, Brecht, Camus; and orig. for radio by Becket and Pinter.

Operas came from Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, Sadlers Wells, Salzburg and Bayreuth - among many others. There were premieres of Havergal Brian, PMD, R. Gerhard, Herbert Howells, E. Lutyens, E Maconchy, A Rawsthorne. UK prems of L. Bernstein, Henze, Holmboe, F. Marin, Martinů, Nielsen, Stravinsky.

The Reith lecturer was [Sir] Peter Medawar.

By my calculations, the Third/N3 (which was still only on for about 6 hrs per day) was 45% 'serious music' (which is opposed to light and dance music) and 23% talks/discussions. Other content included religion, news, and OBs - including the Test Match

Most of that isn't now anywhere on the BBC services, though a small amount is on Radio 3. One gets back to Meades' 'self-fulfilling prophecy': it isn't broadcast now because audiences aren't interested enough to warrant the expense on such things. And they're not interested because they never have a chance to see/hear it.

But this gets close to an idea of what a 'cultural network' might be ... and this doesn't really look at the talks programming.

[Honoured Guest]

Hmm... I'd be very sceptical about the promise of these "cultural" plays and operas on tv now. We'll find out soon enough when Director General Tony Hall's decree that BBC tv shalt broadcast stage productions doth come to pass. I think they'll be far too long and static to retain the attention of anyone but a band of devotees. As a separate point, I think it poor that a new DG can apparently make such a major change to broadcasting policy at their personal whim, with no consultation or discussion with either the public or the programme makers or the executives or the media. The vocal support of Norman Lebrecht is also concerning to everyone else.

[mercia]

crikey, only 45% of a 6-hour day for music. On the days when they broadcast an opera that must have been the only music they had time for. The present R3 obviously does a lot better than that. R4 still has the weekly 'classic serial' and 4extra has a classic serial once a day repeated twice a day. Doesn't R3 broadcast premieres anymore? As we know it broadcasts at least two operas per week. Haven't the most recent Reith lecturers been as eminent as Sir PM ? During test matches with only 6 hours a day broadcasting there can't have been time for anything else. R4 seems to be able to afford an original 45-minute drama every day, though I can't speak for the quality of any of them. I don't suppose any listening figures are available for a 1950s broadcast of Pirandello, I shall just assume that the whole country tuned in.

[antongould]

crikey, only 45% of a 6-hour day for music. On the days when they broadcast an opera that must have been the only music they had time for. The present R3 obviously does a lot better than that. R4 still has the weekly 'classic serial' and 4extra has a classic serial once a day repeated twice a day. Doesn't R3 broadcast premieres anymore? As we know it broadcasts at least two operas per week. Haven't the most recent Reith lecturers been as eminent as Sir PM ? During test matches with only 6 hours a day broadcasting there can't have been time for anything else.

Not a lot of time indeed mercs I'm sure they played lots of short pieces and read out telegrams.......

[aeolium]

ff msg 49

That's an impressive roster of TV and radio content for 1959/60, though I think if a year in the late 1960s or early 1970s had been chosen the TV fare would have been even more varied, with more original drama and probably more music/opera.

I suppose one point that could be made is that the fare is very European (with an occasional nod to America), reflecting the fact that at this period several European empires including the British were still very much in place. Of the culture of the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, South America (more than half the world) - nothing. But this was very much a reflection of the cultural establishment at the time.

What would be good would be to have a network that provided not only the best of what Europe has created (including contemporary work) but also that of the rest of the world; and also a network that saw it as a duty to give an insight into those other cultures in a way that the 1959/60 world wasn't really bothered to do.

[french frank]

Not a lot of time indeed mercs I'm sure they played lots of short pieces and read out telegrams.......

Quantity doesn't equate to quality. These are averages, so some days would have had the longer works. But in those days people weren't such slavish devourers of television and radio - listening now, on average, something like 3 hours every day (and still finding time to travel to and from work) - or getting on for one complete 24-hour day in 7.

As to the point about whether full length plays would be 'far too long and static to retain the attention of anyone but a band of devotees', well, the result, presumably of starving a generation of such output. The question for a PSB would not be 'is that the present case' but 'should it be'? One way to make difficult things 'accessible' is to allow opportunity for practice. The 'band of devotees' will probably always find some method of accessing what they want: live theatre-going, DVDs, audio books, reading. But if the BBC has a duty to provide opportunities for education and learning, should it spend such a huge proportion of its, now enormous, portfolio giving people what they already know, like and is within their capability to cope with?

On the question of whether Radio 3 was intended, with generic broadcasting, to become a 'music network', this from the Radio Times, 4 April 1970:

A New Place for Radio

MUSIC

Or rather, not music alone, because when it starts this Saturday, Radio 3 will not be just a music network. Edward Greenfield, The Guardian music critic, and Peter Maxwell Davies, the composer, who here talk with Sir William Glock (Controller of BBC Music) and Howard Newby (Controller, Radio 3) were, in the main, concerned that Radio 3 should be - as the Third Programme and Music Programmes were - the best music network in the world. What is the best way to use the BBC orchestras? What is the policy for the Proms? Can music be presented successfully, without dilution? How large a space is there for the work of modern, and of young composers? Is putting on a continuous stream of music a policy with sinister implications? But the debate ranged wider, too. Peter Maxwell Davies begins the converstion with a personal tribute to the Third Programme as the most important influence on his life. Is Radio 3 in danger of abandoning the unique cultural excellence of the Third?


Radio 3 Controller, PH Newby said that what the Third/3 was losing was coverage of political and economic affairs. To continue on 3: drama, poetry, talks by scientists, philosophers, historians.

And for those who question the DG's right to make decisions on policy 'at his personal whim', his right is surely greater than a station controller's right to decide station strategy 'with no consultation or discussion with either the public or the programme makers or the executives or the media'? Not only is the public not consulted, it isn't even allowed, under the Freedom of Information Act, to know what it is.

[teamsaint]

Hmm... I'd be very sceptical about the promise of these "cultural" plays and operas on tv now. We'll find out soon enough when Director General Tony Hall's decree that BBC tv shalt broadcast stage productions doth come to pass. I think they'll be far too long and static to retain the attention of anyone but a band of devotees. As a separate point, I think it poor that a new DG can apparently make such a major change to broadcasting policy at their personal whim, with no consultation or discussion with either the public or the programme makers or the executives or the media. The vocal support of Norman Lebrecht is also concerning to everyone else.

If you are talking about the 20% increase in funding for the arts and music, it actually amounts to a few millions at most.
I had a look around and figures are (surprise surprise) hard to find, but the 20% increase is probably in the order of £5m PA.
Not really a major policy change, in a budget of £5bn, or a licence fee income of well over £3 bn.

Much more to do with spin and careers than any real change IMO.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18641551

(Lets generously assume the BBC has £30m of the £44 m, so the 20% increase would be £6 m. Peanuts, really.)

[Gordon]

Don't disagee aeolium but this particular point in UK history [you've never had it so good] and its broadcasting is also signficant for the Pilkington Report which we had a short thread about some while ago. This report was arguably the most important of its kind and was to lead to changes that expanded the broadcast field enabling it to do more things over the next couple of charter periods - eg BBC 2 in 64, stereo radio, local radio, commercial radio, and eventually Channel 4 in 1980. However, despite these extra and improved routes to the public did the content expand in all directions or did it shape itself according to changing public tastes and demands?

The UK was probably introspective, still coming to terms with the results of the war and its impact on the empire which was being divested. However that was also balanced by the raw optimism of the burgeoning popular music business which was to become a British domain in the 60s. The stuffiness of the old way would soon change with the pivot of that change being set around 1960-4 and the more popular tastes asserted themselves. Change of government too - Wilson's "white heat of technology" etc [and the scrapping of TSR2 and the beginnings of our reliance of US military technology].

[Gordon]

If you are talking about the 20% increase in funding for the arts and music, it actually amounts to a few millions at most.
I had a look around and figures are (surprise surprise) hard to find, but the 20% increase is probably in the order of £5m PA.
Not really a major policy change, in a budget of £5bn, or a licence fee income of well over £3 bn.

Much more to do with spin and careers than any real change IMO.

Well the BBC is now £4.5million a year better off than it was. Thanks Sky it should never have been paid in the first place!!

[french frank]

Well the BBC is now £4.5million a year better off than it was. Thanks Sky it should never have been paid in the first place!!

That would cover the Proms deficit, currently paid for out of Radio 3's budget! [Not that we're officially allowed to know how much the deficit is, even under the FOIA].

[Honoured Guest]

The BBC disproportionately overinvests in Radio 3, on the measures of cost per listener (reach) and cost per listener hour. As the BBC's budgetary rack continues to tighten, it seems fair to create a ringfenced budget for music and culture, to make it an internal tussle between the Proms, the Performing Groups and the Radio 3 Dimensions.

[teamsaint]

The BBC disproportionately overinvests in Radio 3, on the measures of cost per listener (reach) and cost per listener hour. As the BBC's budgetary rack continues to tighten, it seems fair to create a ringfenced budget for music and culture, to make it an internal tussle between the Proms, the Performing Groups and the Radio 3 Dimensions.

Orwellian !

Licence fee income is rising £50m PA.