The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[MarkG]

Firmly in 'pop classics' territory for the first couple of hours this morning. A Strauss waltz, Vivaldi's Autumn, Fur Elise, Barber's 'Adagio'...

[Mr Pee]

Firmly in 'pop classics' territory for the first couple of hours this morning. A Strauss waltz, Vivaldi's Autumn, Fur Elise, Barber's 'Adagio'...

( The perfect opportunity to use the new smiley!)

[doversoul1]

( The perfect opportunity to use the new smiley!)

I know. It really was, wasn’t it MrPee?

[aeolium]

A suggestion to sleep through the Breakfast programme? Not a bad idea, at that.

[french frank]

A suggestion to sleep through the Breakfast programme? Not a bad idea, at that.

Well, the new RAJAR figures are out for last quarter and Breakfast has burst through to its best ever listening figures - by some margin. Not that targeting 'the wider audience' was designed to drive up listening figures, according to the Trust. Oh, no, no, no, no, no ...

There is something very odd about all the figures this quarter, though - everything seems to be booming. I haven't yet fathomed out why ...

Edit: More info on this from the RAJAR news release:

"NEWS RELEASE
Issued May 11, 2011 at 17.00hrs
RAJAR DATA RELEASE – QUARTER 1, 2011
STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01 HOURS, MAY 12, 2011
Radio listening figures for Q1, 2011 set new records

91.6% of UK population tune in to radio every week – new record *
Total radio listening hours reach 1,058 million per week – new record ◊
Over a quarter of radio listening is now via a digital receiver
Access to a DAB receiver up 11.2% year on year to 19.7million adults
Hours of listening via the internet up 28.3% year on year

Radio listening reached its highest level ever recorded in Q1, 2011*, as 47.3 million adults or 91.6% of the population (15+) tuned in to their favourite radio stations each week†, it was announced today by RAJAR Limited (Radio Joint Audience Research). This figure is up by over three quarters of a million listeners in comparison with a year ago or 1.7%. (c.f. 46.5 million in Q1, 2010). The total number of radio listening hours also broke all previous records to reach 1,058 million hours per week or 22.4 hours per listener◊ (c.f. 1,045 million hours in Q4, 2010).

[antongould]

Very interesting and possibly not stupid!? When will we get the actual Breakfast figures?

[french frank]

Very interesting and possibly not stupid!? When will we get the actual Breakfast figures?

We have them: 903,000. The previous highest Breakfast figure was 819,000 and the highest Morning on 3 figure which we have (these programmes figures are only available since 2005) was 839,000.

[antongould]

........and this is a bad thing?

[french frank]

........and this is a bad thing?

In the normal way of things, it's an irrelevant figure to the individual listener, isn't it?

Breakfast is the key programme which is now aimed at 'the wider audience' - as is obvious from the changes. Targeting a bigger pool of listeners should bring a bigger audience. But this will be a bad thing to the section of the audience which now finds the programme so dumbed down as to be too painful to listen to.

[antongould]

But is it not, as we may have discussed before, an entry channel for people into the many and wider delights of R3 - it with Private Passions was for me and I would guess, without an ounce of statistical proof, many others. Without programmes such as these where would the new audience come from?

[french frank]

But is it not, as we may have discussed before, an entry channel for people into the many and wider delights of R3 - it with Private Passions was for me and I would guess, without an ounce of statistical proof, many others. Without programmes such as these where would the new audience come from?

Well, previously new listeners didn't need special programmes to lure them in. We're now turning the clock back to 1895 with Newman and Wood's idea of 'building an audience' for classical music with the Proms. By the 1940s, Wood reckoned he had done that.

When I started listening I didn't need short pieces repeated at regular intervals and intrusive presenters cooing at me. I liked the quote from Lindsay Anderson, returning to Britain after a time in Europe:

"...coming back to Britain is also, in many respects, like going back to the nursery... Nanny lights the fire, and sits herself down with a nice cup of tea and yesterday's Daily Express; but she keeps half an eye on us too."

Radio 3 has become Nanny. If Breakfast becomes too crass why would its audience want to go any further and discover anything?

[Eudaimonia]

If Breakfast becomes too crass why would its audience want to go any further and discover anything?

Great point, but not everyone is up for Lutoslawski and Berg at eight-thirty in the morning. Just because you and I always were and never needed special programmes doesn't mean we have the faintest idea of what's best for attracting and keeping a drive-time audience of today. Don't forget, there's also a danger of going "Nanny" in the other direction and forcing difficult music on listeners like naughty children being made to eat their Brussels sprouts. Surely balance is key.

I'd like to see somebody break it down: which specific changes can you point to in the programming that made the numbers jump this quarter? Is the so-called increase just a generic hiccup due to listening figures going up across the board, or is it a significant change for reasons that really mean something? Until we know more about what happened and why, it's a bit pointless to say much about it about it one way or the other, isn't it.

And who knows--maybe somebody did hear Barber's Adagio for the first time last week and became inspired to find out more. I think we've all been around the musical block so long we're at risk for becoming jaded and inured to the beauty of familiar works, and dismiss them out of hand for no good reason at all. Don't you remember the magic of the first time you heard a piece you later knew like the back of your hand? Oh well, I think it's awfully easy to get careless about what we label "pop" classical and lump masterworks in with the dross out of sheer force of exposure alone.

[Panjandrum]

I'd be more interested in learning what the total number of listener hours was to Breakfast. This, I suspect, is sharply downwards. While the total number of listeners may have increased, a large number will be like those in this thread who keep tuning in, in the forlorn hope that things will have improved, only to turn off immediately again. They will, of course, be captured in this putative increased number of listeners.

For me, the nadir occurred two years ago when SMP and some chap with a comedy northern accent invited listeners to make a poem about getting up in the morning.

I have not returned to the congregation since.

[Norfolk Born]

'The new listening figures are a triumphant vindication of our audience building-cum-refreshment policy. Instead of carping, you should rejoice at the news' (especially as the controller is clearly not for turning, if indeed he ever was).
What's happened to CFM's figures, incidentally?

[french frank]

Well, let's not go back to the argument that it has to be either populist, audience-pleasing or Lutoslawski/Berg (or more usually Bruckner/Mahler symphonies) in the early morning. In any case, if people are only going to listen in the early morning, where does the education come in if anything deemed remotely 'difficult' for new listeners is excluded?

The discussion should revolve around what one thinks Radio 3 is for. Is it to be the one area of BBC output which caters for devoted listening, which different people find their way to at different times in their lives (I was in my forties), for an audience which actively pursues its interest; or should it provide a distinctive output appealing to a wide audience but setting the knowledge base very low and relying on the frequent repetition of (shorter) attractive pieces for the times of day when most people are available to listen. Or if both audiences are sought, what should the balance be? - let's see it designated: regular drivetime for beginners, graveyard slots for anything considered offputting to 'beginners'?

As far as I'm concerned, until that question's sorted there's nothing meaningful to discuss. Yet we're led to believe it's a discussion which the BBC has never had.