What should a 'cultural network' be doing?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

an interesting take on costs and benefits of the BBC TV License and the use made of it

[Honoured Guest]

Is that correct? I've just checked the iPlayer 'Watch Live' page and got the warning message about needing a TV licence. So, unless they speciifically say it will be a 'library' rather than a linear streamed service, I would take it as the latter.

Well, there's an official announcement tomorrow of the BBC Executive's proposal, so we'll know then. BBC3 now makes its major new comedy programmes available on iPlayer a week before their tv premiere, and I imagine that's the plan for all BBC3. Much of the schedule is in-week repeats, and I can see no point in streaming a linear service on iPlayer-only when the same programmes are already available there to view at any time. I'm unsure how the hourly 60 Seconds news bulletin requirement would be delivered outside a streamed linear channel, unless BBC3 iPlayer News is a loop of a 60 Seconds news burst, refreshed hourly.

[Hitch]

The iPlayer's "Music" category currently offers the following number of TV programmes:

• Classic Pop & Rock: 6
• Classical: 1
• Folk: 3
• Jazz & Blues: 5
• Pop & Chart: 2
• World: 1
• Other Music: 9

The sole classical item, the admittedly fine "Elgar: The Man Behind the Mask", was first broadcast on BBC TV in November 2010.

[french frank]

Goodness - does that mean there are actually 9 programmes on Classic Pop & Rock - or would they just be short videos?

[Honoured Guest]

I'm not familiar with navigating the iPlayer (I usually locate in-week programmes via the channel schedule pages) but I've had a look just now and come across BBC Four (tv) "Collections" of archive programmes, which includes a Collection of 19 Modern Classical Music programmes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/collections

[Honoured Guest]

"What should a 'cultural network' be doing" in times of squeezed funding?

Lyn Gardner's stimulating Guardian TheatreBlog addresses a similar question in relation to live theatre. I realise that a radio station is a different beast, but the strong "live" music commitment of Radio 3 makes this TheatreBlog worth a ponder. Lyn always seeks to start a debate with her blogs, and not to give her definitive opinion.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2014/mar/05/theatre-look-to-the-future

[Hitch]

Goodness - does that mean there are actually 9 programmes on Classic Pop & Rock - or would they just be short videos?

Full-length programmes, though mostly repeats or reworkings of old shows. The BBC doesn't seem to have any difficulty in ransacking its Pop and Rock archives...

[teamsaint]

so sending BBC 3 online only means that if you want to enjoy the full range of BBC content , you have to buy a licence, own a telly, have a DAB radio, pay a broadband provider and own a PC (or pay a mobile phone company and own a tablet style thing).
I wonder who is benefitting?
Actually technically you don't need to own a telly or a DAB radio, I suppose.

Still, bit of a pain if you pay your licence fee and particularly enjoy BBC3.

(venn diagram time).

What is happening to CBBC/ Cbeebies, which share the BBC3 channel?


If BBC3 goes online only, it sets a dangerous precedent. It puts all BBC provision potentially in the hands of ISPs, and increases the potential restrictions that DRM threatens.

I don't think it would be difficult to put together a strong argument that this is part of a process to put BBC provision exclusively online at some point.

[french frank]

I suppose the difference with live theatre is that an important source of revenue is in ticket sales - and the classics will still fill theatres. In terms of public service radio there's no additional revenue in attracting a million listeners rather than ten thousand. Live music in the generally accepted sense of live concerts gets its audiences by playing safe: 'specially recorded' performances for radio in small venues don't rely on revenue and needn't play safe.

Unlike in theatre, classical music has its recorded legacy to supplement 'live' performances - CDs are cheap programming, but there are unlikely to be any recordings of contemporary compositions - which is why Radio 3 is so important (or should be).

Arguably, Radio 3 should broadcast more classic plays because it can reach the entire nation where, realistically, a London theatre will only reach an audience to which it is easily accessible: a play on Radio 3 which attracts a meagre audience of 100,000 has filled the equivalent of 50 largish theatres.

Not sure where any of these comments lead :-) - must ponder again tomorrow.

[aeolium]

Arguably, Radio 3 should broadcast more classic plays because it can reach the entire nation where, realistically, a London theatre will only reach an audience to which it is easily accessible: a play on Radio 3 which attracts a meagre audience of 100,000 has filled the equivalent of 50 largish theatres.

Although if the theatre also broadcasts live to cinema - not just in this country but to cinemas across the world - then it is possible for the theatre to reach a larger audience than Radio 3. I advocated the BBC (including R3) transmitting live from theatre over 10 years ago, before theatres decided it was worth their while to do live broadcasts on their own. I think in Tony Hall's new plan for improved arts broadcasting there is supposedly the intent to broadcast live from venues, but the BBC has come late to the party, partly because they have for a good while lost any belief that there is much of an audience for classic theatre. Here was a report, a review of the first NT Live broadcast, that gave the lie to that:

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2009/jun/26/national-theatre-live-phedre

[french frank]

I agree - such relays are magnificent, though that wouldn't abolish a need for Radio 3/BBC Four to broadcast them too - presumably cheaper than producing it themselves! That would give near universal UK coverage, whereas even if every cinema in the country were broadcasting the relay, there would be people who would find it as difficult to reach a cinema as a theatre.

The advantages of the BBC participating in some way seem undeniable, though Radio 3 could still produce plays which no other theatre would be likely to touch, with a freedom to make the choices themselves for their own reasons.

[Honoured Guest]

NT Live has a broader remit than only "classic plays". For example, it's featured The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the celebratory afrobeat musical FELA!, Frankenstein by Nick Dear and Danny Boyle, and the phenomenon that is War Horse.

BBC4 produced a number of tv productions of stage plays in its early years, but this practice was aborted, in favour of biographical dramas, because the stage plays weren't sufficiently satisfactory for television. Personally, I'm sceptical that live relays from theatres will have the same effect on television (or tablet!) that they do in cinemas with an audience who have paid the ticket price of a studio theatre show and gathered together for a large-screen communal near-theatre experience. Of course I appreciate the access argument that publicly funded theatre will become available (in a second-rate form) to a far wider audience. But this tv project seems to be led by Tony Hall, from the perspective of supporting his old chums in the performing arts, without much apparent strategy initiative from the relevant experts, who are the broadcast drama practioners.

[Honoured Guest]

BBC3 - Tony Hall has spoke!

Significant content savings, with total savings of over £50million, of which £30m to be reinvested in BBC1 drama, which is popular with young audiences.

BBC3 will in future be a branded Collection on iPlayer, not a linear channel.

All new BBC3 programming will eventually be broadcast, mainly on BBC1 and BBC2, after 10.30pm.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2014/bbc-three-tv-closure.html

[Zucchini]

Don't forget The Space; due for relaunch after last year's pilot (if the Trust endorse it). A genuinely exciting, innovative outlet with a myriad of possibilities.

[Honoured Guest]

Danny Cohen, BBC director of television, is now on 5Live, speaking to new father Richard Bacon. He confirms that, with the planned closure of broadcast BBC3, BBC4 is "safe" in the current licence settlement period, which ends in 2015/16.