The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[teamsaint]

Its just the news that the government want you to hear about anyway.

All best ignored.

[Nick Armstrong]

Its just the news that the government want you to hear about anyway.

All best ignored.

actually,with all these folk still slumbering at 9 AM, it's no wonder the philistines have taken over. It's been made easy. Remember mrs Thatch ...she used to get up early and do something nasty while Geoffrey Howe was still counting sheep !
Only got yourselves to blame . !

All true.... I blame myself. I love a lie-in listening to R3.

(Never listen to R4 in the morning)

Bit of a soothsayer ce soir, ts.

[teamsaint]

All true.... I blame myself. I love a lie-in listening to R3.

(Never listen to R4 in the morning)

Bit of a soothsayer ce soir, ts.

i have needed to be philosophical today, Caliban.... and not just because of the footy result .....

[Bax-of-Delights]

There is another aspect, more insidious and more damaging, to the concentration on "essential" classics or what might be termed the "easy" end of the musical spectrum as shown in both Breakfast and EC - some 5 1/2 hours of prime R3 broadcasting time. And that is the absence of virtually any music composed in the last 80 - 100 years. What does manage to squeeze into the playlist tends to be something that is unlikely to tax the "new" audience (or that "new" audience that R3 thinks it is catching but which in truth is surely a passing show). Malcolm Arnold (English/Scottish Dances, Padstow Life-Boat), John Adams (Short Ride) or Arvo Paart (Fratres, Summa) is about the total sum of it. Even then I note the Adams is now 28 years old.
Were there to be a radio programme entirely devoted to books, literature, the written word don't you think it would be very odd if all that was broadcast were endless repeats of Jane Austen, the Brontes, Charles Dickens, F.Scott Fitzgerald and early Virginia Woolf? James Joyce (the Webern figure if you like) would only be represented by Dubliners (Im Sommerwind).

Contemporary music is now almost completely excluded from the UK's major classical music broadcaster. Oh, there will be the cries of "the BBC commissions new pieces for the Proms" but as we know there will be a one-shot broadcast and then 99.9% of these commissions are relegated to the silent hinterland, never to be heard again. Audiences in past centuries were more in touch with their contemporary composers than ever we are despite (or perhaps because of) all the technology and broadcasting choices available to us these days. R3 - almost across the whole of its broadcasting - continues to accelerate the move away from enquiry of and interest in developments within contemporary classical music. It is caught in a revolving time warp, pickled in amber, pinioned by the neck like a snake unable (and unwilling in its present guise) to break free.

And for any R3 producers/presenters who frequent these boards may I add that including Piazzola in the programmes does not count. Hip it might be, contemporary it ain't.

[french frank]

When the Radio 3 strategy was to target new listeners who weren't classical music fans (jazz, world, film, music theatre, 'music not usually associated with Radio 3', according to the BBC Annual Report referring to Late Junction) and we then complained about the lack of classical music throughout the week at key times including the evenings and Bank Holidays), we were officially told by the then Director of Radio that we were being asked to 'share your station' (her words) with people whose tastes were not our own.

That strategy didn't work so it was largely cast aside. Now we're asked to 'share our station' at key times throughout the week with families who don't know anything about classical music which means us being pushed out again and Radio 3 not living up to its artistic standards

[Serial_Apologist]

So true! John Humphrys has a new habit of trying to engage in badinage with the other presenters (finance, sports, weather). He ends up talking all over them, so what the listener hears is a garbled mess. Appalling, unprofessional, sloppy, irksome...the potential for serious journalism on Today has been replaced with bite-sized "snappy" six-minute segments of utter ephemera (and far too much trivia!).

I've noticed this happening, too, particularly since the beginning of this year. Yet notwithstanding such time-wasting, we still get the old, "You'll have to be quick I'm afraid - 20 seconds".

[Resurrection Man]

Its just the news that the government want you to hear about anyway.

All best ignored.

Oh ..pish-tush....that's not so. But we've had this discussion before....so we'll have to differ!

[Resurrection Man]

So true! John Humphrys has a new habit of trying to engage in badinage with the other presenters (finance, sports, weather). He ends up talking all over them, so what the listener hears is a garbled mess. Appalling, unprofessional, sloppy, irksome...the potential for serious journalism on Today has been replaced with bite-sized "snappy" six-minute segments of utter ephemera (and far too much trivia!).

What annoys me even more is how, after he has asked a question and the interviewee is answering, Humphrys interrupts with some facile comment - almost as if he's trying to show off 'Look at me....I know all this stuff'...rather than let the interviewee continue. It's not the same as cutting across the interviewee, especially if they are a politician and not answering the question.

[teamsaint]

Oh ..pish-tush....that's not so. But we've had this discussion before....so we'll have to differ!

so how DO they arrive at news agendas, what is the top story, and so on?
It doesn't happen by magic....the government would be very stupid indeed if the left it all in the control of loony lefty BBC journos, wouldn't they?

[antongould]

so how DO they arrive at news agendas, what is the top story, and so on?
It doesn't happen by magic....the government would be very stupid indeed if the left it all in the control of loony lefty BBC journos, wouldn't they?

Who are all these politicos? I didn't hear any of them this morning but then there was probably just Sara, Copland, Gregory Peck, Abe Lincoln and I

[mercia]

the musical map - a celebration of British music making past and present - what's wrong with that ?

[french frank]

the musical map - a celebration of British music making past and present - what's wrong with that ?

The silly, rather childish way they choose to do it (it isn't about celebrating British music-making anyway - it's about finding a way to use 'interactivity' which is the BBC diktat). We were reminded this is choral music atm, leaving the way open to go through it all again with orchestral music

[mercia]

actually I think we've moved on to Baroque music - astounding how much is going on that I wouldn't otherwise have known about

[antongould]

actually I think we've moved on to Baroque music - astounding how much is going on that I wouldn't have otherwise known about

Indeed even Rumpole, who it is well known knows everything, learnt something from yesterday's Howells call........

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the musical map - a celebration of British music making past and present - what's wrong with that ?

Oh! Does it include Renaissance composers, then?

I'd like a Map o'Mundy.