Alan Davey, new controller, R3

[french frank]

And I ended the week at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony Orchestra performing doing Nielsen’s 3rd Symphony

not sure that 'doing' is necessary

Pendant!

(french frank considers commenting: 'Early days, but don't be TOO uncritical ...'

[Flosshilde]

The new controller agrees with you - thinks it's magic... http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/radio3/en...adio_and_music

Before I saw the caption to the photograph I wondered who the R3 presenter was second from left. Not quite the 'look' I thought they would have, but who knows these days?

[Nick Armstrong]

Before I saw the caption to the photograph I wondered who the R3 presenter was second from left. Not quite the 'look' I thought they would have, but who knows these days?

I suspect he's one of the Dancers from The Year of Song and Dance 2015, isn't he? Remember Paloma Wazzername at the Proms announcement...

[french frank]

I suspect he's one of the Dancers from The Year of Song and Dance 2015, isn't he? Remember Paloma Wazzername at the Proms announcement...

Yes, it is a BBC-wide event. Dance on Radio 3 - should be spectacular!

[Flosshilde]

I suspect he's one of the Dancers from The Year of Song and Dance 2015, isn't he? Remember Paloma Wazzername at the Proms announcement...

Yes, I did think that was likely once I saw the caption.

But he could be a new presenter for Performance on 3, replacing one of those 'past their sell-by date'

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, it is a BBC-wide event. Dance on Radio 3 - should be spectacular!

Pendant!

Necklace!

[Serial_Apologist]

Necklace!

On which much could hang...

[Nick Armstrong]

On which much could hang...

That would depend....

[vinteuil]

That would depend....

... mmm, he pondered, pensively...

[Nick Armstrong]

... mmm, he pondered, pensively...

ya think?

[french frank]

ya think?

He was just being ponderous. As distinct from pendulous.

[french frank]

And this from the old controller.

I note one comment beneath:

From: comeonyouspurs

"But he has dumbed down R3. The modish & self-congratulatory Late Junction is on at 11pm, without presumably the ratings pressures of Breakfast, with its brainteasers, audience tweets and celeb interviews. "... trusting the brand" - conformist corporate-speak, says it all."

I note the new controller supports Spurs ......

[Stanley Stewart]

In today's Radio Waves column, Sunday Times Culture magazine, (18 Jan), Paul Donovan has headed his column, 'Mission Control' providing a few indicators he would welcome as Alan Davey becomes the 10th controller of Radio 3 since it began as the Third in 1946:

"Davey has never produced or presented a programme, devised a schedule or
worked for the BBC in any capacity, but that does not mean he is the wrong
man for the job. It is clear from everything he has said and, more importantly,
done that he loves and knows classical music, which Radio 3 does indeed
play in greater range, depth, context and understanding than anywhere else.
The station is also the biggest commissioner of music in Britain, and runs
the world's largest classical music festival, the Proms.

In addition, having been a civil servant for many years, then chief executive at
Arts Council England, he is well versed in the sort of squabbling, back-stabbing
bureaucracy of which the BBC is only one example. He is more than capable
of negotiating the corridors of power - a vital quality, given that the BBC's
royal charter and licence expire at the end of next year; Davey also had to axe
more than 100 jobs at the Arts Council, so knows all about public sector
cutbacks. Finally, he is endearingly down to earth. An electrician's son
from Stockton-on-Tees, he studied medieval literature at postgraduate level
at Oxford, but has kept the common touch, revealing that he was a punk
who stumbled across Radio 3 as a teenager. It "opened the door" for him,
as it has for so many....
...Like all new brooms, he will want to sweep. Personally, I hope he brushes
the drama slot from Sunday night (where it clashes with too many other
attractive shows) to post-3pm on a weekday; boosts theology and serious
religious belief, which as a genre are withering away, despite its obvious
importance in world events; cuts banal morning items such as tweets,
phone-ins and quizzes; and makes sure he does not touch Choral Evensong,
Private Passions or Words and Music.

It is difficult for Radio 3 to please both elitists and populists, so it shifts
first one way, then the other. Davey deserves a fair wind in becoming the
latest person to try to do what we know is impossible - square the circle."

[french frank]

Thanks, SS - I never get to see PD's column these days (copied in case Mr Murdoch asks us to remove it). I hope he'll be pleased that one item I did bring up with AD was the question of changes to drama. He said: "You mean the 10pm slot?" (Yes, I did). Yet already I see a couple of the surveys so far returned querying why the drama is on R3 at all. Move it to R4. The only implication of that which such comments suggest is: 'I don't like drama. Get rid.' Not a reasonable argument. R3 drama going to R4 would almost certainly mean R4 expanding its own drama output to look as if it has taken on R3's. Perhaps until such time as it has/is safe to cut back again. And the kind of drama that R3 does (albeit increasingly infrequently) is dropped. Sighs of relief in some quarters!

[Honoured Guest]

In today's Radio Waves column, Sunday Times Culture magazine, (18 Jan), Paul Donovan ... :

"... Personally, I hope he brushes
the drama slot from Sunday night (where it clashes with too many other
attractive shows) to post-3pm on a weekday; ..."

Empirically, Sunday is the best day to schedule the drama slot because there is very little live theatre (or theatre rehearsal) on Sundays and so it's the day of the week when most people with an interest in drama have an opportunity to listen.

If PD's "clashes with too many other attractive shows" comment refers to other broadcasting, then the present 10pm slot has gone a long way in solving this problem (although 10.15pm would be better still) because most Sunday night drama on BBC1, Channel 4 and ITV finishes around 10pm.

Imo, 10pm (or, better, 10.15pm) on Sunday nights is the best slot of the week for any programme of any genre (except, perhaps, for children's broadcasting) because more people are at home and available to listen with commitment at this time than at any other in the whole week, and with relatively little distraction from children and other family or from random phone calls and unexpected visitors or other callers at this time.