The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[antongould]

Have you seen the sort of things they say on The Chor about female precentors?

Yes but why? Taking question 2 into account?

[Serial_Apologist]

A couple of thoughts - why generally do female presenters generate an disproportionate amount of adverse comment hereabouts?

And is it fair to attack any R3 presenter when no one seems sure if they are acting as they would really wish to or following the party/RW line?

They should certainly not be adversely criticised if they have been placed to be "fall guys" for Roger Wright's stewardship of Radio 3.

[jean]

Yes but why? Taking question 2 into account?

I don't know, but I suspect that even after all this time we are still in Dr Johnson territory:

I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

[french frank]

They should certainly not be adversely criticised if they have been placed to be "fall guys" for Roger Wright's stewardship of Radio 3.

OTOH, most presenters are freelances. They can accept their brief or not. It's 'doing work for the BBC', slightly different from 'working for the BBC' which would apply to production staff. I think

[antongould]

I don't know, but I suspect that even after all this time we are still in Dr Johnson territory:

I told him I had been that morning at a meeting of the people called Quakers, where I had heard a woman preach. Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Funnily enough Jean I was just thinking of my quote myself before I posted.........to me they do the job as well as the males...

[antongould]

OTOH, most presenters are freelances. They can accept their brief or not. It's 'doing work for the BBC', slightly different from 'working for the BBC' which would apply to production staff. I think

Surely we are not saying we can forgive Rob Cowan as at his age he has his ISAs to think of but the young ladies can always/easily get secretarial work and throw the brief in RW's face?

[teamsaint]

I would say that some of the male presenters get a good deal of Flak, notably the main presenter of In Tune.

Rob Cowan gets at least as much stick as the Doc, I would say.
And there are female presenters on a good deal of the time between 6.30 AM and 4.30. (50/50 with men till lunchtime, and exclusively female after 1.00 Pm?)

[Richard Tarleton]

A couple of thoughts - why generally do female presenters generate an disproportionate amount of adverse comment hereabouts?

Well I for one have been consistent in my praise for Ms Bott and Ms Skeaping on the EMS. My favourite Breakfast (or whatever it was called) presenter was Penny Gore. My very first letter to Roger Wright concerned the departure of the excellent Stephanie Hughes. Fiona Talkington, Verity Sharp, both first class. Any adverse comment from me strictly gender-neutral. SMP is the only daytime R3 presenter to pronounce Tárrega correctly, so credit where it's due.

[antongould]

Well I for one have been consistent in my praise for Ms Bott and Ms Skeaping on the EMS. My favourite Breakfast (or whatever it was called) presenter was Penny Gore. My very first letter to Roger Wright concerned the departure of the excellent Stephanie Hughes. Fiona Talkington, Verity Sharp, both first class. Any adverse comment from me strictly gender-neutral. SMP is the only daytime R3 presenter to pronounce Tárrega correctly, so credit where it's due.

Well perhaps as usual I'm wrong, in your case Richard most definitely ....

[french frank]

Surely we are not saying we can forgive Rob Cowan as at his age he has his ISAs to think of but the young ladies can always/easily get secretarial work and throw the brief in RW's face?

Nothing to do with age or gender. But freelances can, and usually are, doing other work (in a similar arts/music area), whereas the production people are, I always supposed, full-time staffers.

[doversoul1]

why generally do female presenters generate an disproportionate amount of adverse comment hereabouts?

Being female may be just coincident. What is common to those mostly female presenters who 'generate a disproportionate amount of adverse comment' is that they are what you might call new generation presenters. Fiona Talkington, Penny Gore, Louise Fryer, and Catriana Young don’t (generate adverse comments). There seems to be very few (if any) male presenters who fall into this category.

So it maybe that it is the particular presentation style which is "mew" i.e. overtly personal that gets on our nerves. Or is BBC recruiting (almost) exclusively young-ish female presenters for some reason of its own?

[Zucchini]

...but the young ladies can always/easily get secretarial work and throw the brief in RW's face?

surely you mean "...throw their briefs in RW's face"

(but maybe they did so to be offerred the job in the first place)

[french frank]

I think it usually reflects the profile of the programme: the higher the profile the more flak for the presenter. So the weekday Breakfast presenters, PT and CB-H both have their detractors; so do RC and SW; and SR and SK. Midday until drivetime are lower profile. OTOH, people positively Drooool over the TTN presenters

[Barbirollians]

I rather miss Stephanie Hughes .I don't think it is a sexist thing - yes Katie Derham, Sarah WAlker and Sara Mohr Pietsch are amonst Radio 3's worst presenters but as noted above a number of the women presenters are excellent as was Catherine Bott . Apart from Miss Derham - much the worst and most irritating of the presenters are male -PT and SR and some of the airhead men who now introduce the concerts .

[Frances_iom]

TTN presenters are generally (always?) neutral in tone + restrict their words to a short introduction to the piece, the artists and possibly its connection to others in any sequence of items - ideal if you just want to listen to the music.
I gave up on the Breakfast 'show' sometime ago and if in the house seldom listen to anything in the morning before CoTW - the lunch time concert has been turned into a thing of rags and patches which if larded with KD's over enthusiatic verbiage usually make me turn off, likewise the afternoon compilation - so far the evening concert has remained fairly untainted tho they do seem to have employed a couple of 'oiks' from elsewhere in the BBC empire who IMO would probably be better employed in their day jobs - the nightly discussion seems only to have changed its name but is still the same mismash often with presenters who are too attached to their own prejudices to allow dissenting voices - why it is not possible to have a single topic developed over 45 mins by a 2 or 3 experts along the lines of the Essay defeats me.