Radio 3 drama

[french frank]

This is the way their minds are working:

"The Wire

As a result of changes which will be made to the station's schedule, we are taking a break from further commissioning of The Wire


BBC Radio 3's Drama on 3 for the financial year 2014/15.

Drama on 3 is home to radio’s most ambitious drama. Plays of this length and complexity make exceptional demands on listeners and we can’t take such engagement for granted. As we read your proposal we’ll be asking ourselves how many listeners will devote the bulk of a Sunday evening to it and just what they’ll get out of it. We’ll be looking for a story to tell around our choice of commissions and ways to build anticipation for a play and to persuade the audience to make a date with it.

Each week Drama on 3 should have the feeling of a real event. We want to take listeners on absorbing, moving journeys; to commission plays that will make them stop what they’re doing to listen more intently; offer them drama they’ll want to talk about. Think about the radio drama that has thrilled you.

That puts me off - why?

[aeolium]

What has put me off listening to Do3 generally has been the fact that they now have far too many repeats - often repeats of quite recent productions - and too many dramatisations of novels. What's wrong with dramatising plays (including classical drama) and commissioning new radio plays?

Why do plays "of this length [90-120 minutes] and complexity make exceptional demands" on listeners? More exceptional than listening to a performance of the Missa Solemnis or a Shostakovitch symphony? Sometimes the plays don't seem particularly complex at all to me.

Underlying those statements seems to be a concern that they're spending money on plays that no-one will listen to, that they'd rather spend the money on something else (like severance pay), and that the sooner they can get shot of the whole burden of producing new and classic drama on R3 the better. Perhaps that's what puts you off, ff?

[DracoM]

Totally endorse aeolium to every syllable.

What on earth do they think is the demographic for Do3 - the average audience of Count Arthur Strong or what?
Plays are indeed 90-120 mins - so what? AND they are totally forgetting that it may NOT be a 'Sunday evening' upon which I listen to it. Remember iPlayer, Auntie Beeb???

There used to be a REGULAR decent drama on Friday night on R4 - 9-10, since taken up mostly by what they euphemistically call 'omnibus' editions of 15 minute teaspoonful docs. Friday night plays are now very rare indeed. So the BBC is actually reneging on / pulling back from radio drama altogether. And I would challenge the 'exceptionally demanding' tag: most radio plays are only minimally rehearsed, the scripts are not learnt, there are no costumes or sets [unlike ludicrous Downton / Tudors et al]. Sfx resources, yes, maybe music, but by no means always, such that I would have thought that per unit minute, radio drama is about as cheap as you could get it. BBC may be obsessed by getting names to 'headline' everything, but the audience particularly on R3 is NOT as swoony as the 12 yr olds manifestly i/c radio drama commissioning. Or do they imagine that Clemency Burton-Hill is the touchstone of the demographic's appetite and concentration span?

As aeolium rightly says, this is a subterfuge. R3 drama is rarely uninteresting, rarely un-thought provoking, and it IS giving young dramatists a showcase [ a serious box to tick/trumpet, Beeb??], and it IS getting 'names' to do the stuff. And even if there were not 'names' doing it, the standard of acting in UK theatres and on UK radio s astonishingly high and 'names' are by no means a necessary ingredient.

FF, where do we send in our responses to this pre-emptive strike on the whole basis of R3 drama?

[french frank]

Perhaps that's what puts you off, ff?

I certainly thought it sounded very patronising. Ideally the commissioners/producers should feel 'at one' with their audience, not regarding 'them' from a lofty height and being concerned that their plans don't overburden the liss'ners.

If they put on some better known or interesting 'classics' they wouldn't need to 'persuade' a knowledgeable audience to 'make a date with it'. The choice of play would do that for them. If they've been trying to do it, they've certainly failed with me.

[french frank]

I would have thought that per unit minute, radio drama is about as cheap as you could get it.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Radio drama is probably the most expensive genre on R3.

A disc-based programme on Radio 3 costs about £650 ph, a drama in the region of £20,000.

FF, where do we send in our responses to this pre-emptive strike on the whole basis of R3 drama?

Pass And financially R3 is being squeezed dry by the Trust.

[gingerjon]

A 90 minute radio drama is not demanding. And in the days of iPlayer you don't even need to sit still for that long or miss a bit if you need to answer a call of nature.

£20,000 is a lot of Radio 3's budget but it's ridiculously cheap relative to the quality of the output against a lot of much more expensive TV drama, or even theatre.

[Russ]

I share the general foreboding expressed by others. It's perhaps inevitable given the DQF squeeze on budgets that drama, the most expensive radio arts genre, will be disproportionately affected. (R4 drama costs approx 25k per hour, so a typical R3 90-minuter with slightly less fancy production values and usually fewer actors to pay will be about the same.) From the large number of Do3 repeats over the 2012/3 season, it is clear R3's drama budget has already been much reduced: the 2010 and 2011 Service Licence requirements were for 35 new drama productions, and in 2012 this was reduced to 25. This level of 25 is retained in the current (May 2013) version of the Licence.

Beside the underlying concern over low audience figures for Do3, the aspects that jump out to me from ff's extract of the published Commissioning blurb are "looking for a story to tell around our choice of commissions" and "ways to build anticipation for a play". These reflect equivalent attempts in R4 commissioning: the desire for 'topical' stories or 'themes', and the associated need for sufficient trails (not necessarily on R3 itself) to tickle the interest of a few more potential listeners. With a typical overall production timescale of 18 to 24 months for a Do3, I'm not convinced R3 should attempt 'topicality', but in the sense I detect the Commissioning Editors regard it, the outlook for more of the classics, especially expensive Shakespeare, will be bleak. (Shakespeare on radio is not my cup of tea, btw, but I accept that is entirely my failing.) Many of the Do3s I've enjoyed the most have been the antithesis of topicality or stories reflecting 'modern life'. The prospect of trailing something like Brian Friel's The Faith Healer on BBC2 after an episode of Top Gear is rather incongruous isn't it?

That said, with the decommissioning of The Wire, and assuming the Service Licence requirement will continue at its current level (a forlorn hope??), there could be a brighter side to all this, namely that there will be 25 new Do3s for the forthcoming 2013/4 season. That is actually quite a challenge for R3, so it's not surprising R3 is touting for good scripts, and at least there is a recognition that a healthy level of production has to be maintained for an endangered species - as the wise Gillian Reynolds observed about radio drama when despairing about the demise of the R4 Friday Play in 2010, "What is universally agreed is that excellence is occasional and only comes from a critical mass of constant production."

Russ

[DracoM]

As ever, excellent, Russ.

[french frank]

That said, with the decommissioning of The Wire, and assuming the Service Licence requirement will continue at its current level (a forlorn hope??), there could be a brighter side to all this, namely that there will be 25 new Do3s for the forthcoming 2013/4 season.

There could be a brighter side, yes, though judging by the way that the official 'conditions' were tossed aside over the matter of messageboards, they will report that 'As a consequence of the decommissioning of The Wire, the number of new productions was .....' Sorted. No need to add complications.

The service licence requirements had, as you point out, already been cut, and not merely for new drama productions (35 > 25) but for new music commissions (30 > 20), live music output (50% > 40%), live and specially recorded performances (500> 400).

[Russ]

There could be a brighter side, yes, though judging by the way that the official 'conditions' were tossed aside over the matter of messageboards, they will report that 'As a consequence of the decommissioning of The Wire, the number of new productions was .....' Sorted.

Indeed, so we will need to be on our guard. I've e-mailed David Ireland, the Commissions & Schedules Manager, BBC Radio 3, on the matter.

Russ

[french frank]

Indeed, so we will need to be on our guard. I've e-mailed David Ireland, the Commissions & Schedules Manager, BBC Radio 3, on the matter.

[french frank]

Here's the Do3 commissioning brief for 2014/15. As you see the price guide is £15,000-£18,000 per hour, or c.£23,000+ for a full length play.

The full-length drama is a particular feature of Radio 3; otherwise I expect they'd be dropping Do3 in favour of The Wire to save money. Compare the CD-based music programme at £600 or so per hour.

[Russ]

I received a reply from Graham Dixon, R3's Managing Editor, who assures me R3 has "no intention on defaulting on the Service Licence obligation regarding drama", so the current level of 25 new dramas will stand until the Licence is updated again, which I guess will not be before mid-2014.

Russ

[french frank]

I received a reply from Graham Dixon, R3's Managing Editor, who assures me R3 has "no intention on defaulting on the Service Licence obligation regarding drama", so the current level of 25 new dramas will stand until the Licence is updated again, which I guess will not be before mid-2014.

But the new commissioning briefs are for 2014/15, so I presume the commissioning has already been done until the next service licence. At that point they could drop the condition from, say, 25 to 20. So we'll see what happens.

[Bryn]

Last Sunday's broadcast of Brecht's and Eisler's The Mother was welcome but what a pity Radio 3 did not have the wit or courage to use the John Arden and Margaretta D'Arcy 1984 adaptation which transferred the location to northern Ireland. See pages 171 to 173 of http://40.114.28.106/pdf/04-08-2019_...0191536779.pdf ,