The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My main criticism of many here is that they strike me as extraordinarily selfish in recognising that in the past they belonged to a small limited group who were lucky enough to have a fulltime national radio station which superserved them, but they appear to still expect this historical accident to continue, as of right.

But there are others of us here who - having been brought up in the '60s and '70s on a Council Estate (father a Charge Hand in a factory, mother a waitress in a fish & chip cafe) and going to a Comprehensive - would hope that the new worlds that the broadcast media of those times revealed to them were as available to people in similar environments today. The experience of my contemporaries at that age was one of curiosity that Radio 3 (amongst others) helped to satisfy, even if we took the pass out of their funny accents. The teenagers I have attempted to introduce to the present R3 have all (without fail) been very rude (and I mean very rude) about the patronizing sub-Blue Peter presentation style.

What you often do not seem to realize is that many contributors are perfectly aware of the "BBC objectives which concern Music & the Arts" and totally agree with those objectives. Nobody here, in the whole time I have been a member of the Forum and its BBC predecessor, has suggested that the principal objective of bringing minority-interest ideas to mainstream, larger audiences is one that repulses them. Unlike you, we do not believe that what is on offer comes close to realizing that objective.

[Honoured Guest]

I'm not sure that accessibility needs to lead to mainstream, larger audiences. I think it would be healthier if there were different (although overlapping) engaged audiences for different programmes.

As for teenagers, or younger, it might be better to have a dedicated radio programme (not necessarily on Radio 3) or an online service.

Perhaps I've been reading the wrong threads, but I haven't read much constructive criticism suggesting how BBC objectives might be more effectively realised.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not sure that accessibility needs to lead to mainstream, larger audiences. I think it would be healthier if there were different (although overlapping) engaged audiences for different programmes.

I am more sure - and disagree with any suggestion that arpartheidism is at all "healthy".

As for teenagers, or younger, it might be better to have a dedicated radio programme (not necessarily on Radio 3) or an online service.

So, you don't want them to listen to R3? Or you agree that the current R3 standard is unworthy of any intelligent 13-year-old?

Perhaps I've been reading the wrong threads, but I haven't read much constructive criticism suggesting how BBC objectives might be more effectively realised.

I suspect that you haven't seen them because you do not want to. Much easier to regard the Forum as consisting of a bunch of elitist and irrelevant malcontents.

[Domeyhead]

In some civilised societies, visitors from outside are greeted as honoured guests. In barbaric societies, such visitors are met with suspicion and fear.
....
I do pay attention to trends, news and public reports in broadcasting and arts. Many on this board appear to be partial in their attention, seeing the micro but ignoring the macro.
...
If you have constructive comments for how this could be better achieved, I'm sure they would be gratefully heard.

I find your oleaginous style both irritating and patronising. It is akin to the mannered displays of georgian fops and dandies, bowing politely to each other at a masked ball. Don't do it if you want to be persuasive.
In response to your note above, Gateway to what, exactly? A wider BBC arts world where similar trivialising and patronising output is also on offer? Is this a world where we can look forward to a docudrama with idiotic mummer actors in costume behind the presenter acting out Columbus discovering America where once we had Jacob Bronowski simply explaining the course of the ascent of Man? Is this your message?
These "tectonic shifts" of yours possibly refer to the culling of the license fee in which case I suggest it is mainstream output that is more at risk, with perfectly adequate commercial output available. "Public Service Broadcasting" was and should be to provide the breadth of output for which commercial alternatives may not exist. The arts is a clear candidate and Radio 3 is at the very heart of it. What is the point of BBC producers chasing ratings by producing the same output as commercial competitors? One of the problems this forum challenged was Radio 3's feeble attempts to copy Classic FM - not out of its desire to improve output but out of pure vanity - trying through clumsy, childish and amateurish phone ins and quizzes to "engage", "amuse", "involve" and "stimulate" an audience who merely wanted to "listen". (Herbie Goldberg excepted).
I agree with you on the current objectives of Radio 3's output, but that does not mean I think it is right. If every BBC channel is going into competition with all its siblings as well as commercial stations to become as accessible as possible then everyone is going to try and occupy exactly the same middle ground. You disparage the notion of simply listening to music as an end in itself. Why? Are you inferring that it is too "purist?" too "highbrow?" too "exclusive"? Must we make it accessible with titbits that might attract a daytime TV viewer to take a chance as well?
Perhaps we should make our art galleries more accessible by placing strip cartoons on the walls between the paintings.

[cloughie]

In some civilised societies, visitors from outside are greeted as honoured guests. In barbaric societies, such visitors are met with suspicion and fear.

You are signed up as a full member and so not a visitor from outside.

[french frank]

If you have constructive comments for how this could be better achieved, I'm sure they would be gratefully heard.

March 4th 2003 - first meeting. I honestly thought that BBC managers would be interested to hear constructive comments from real listeners. They weren't then, they aren't now.

You may find it easy to 'refocus' your interests on what the BBC and others want to give you: that simply makes you a consumer, without critical or creative thought. To me, you are the selfish one, and you don't address the fact that, even on its own terms, the current strategy isn't working.

The Trust review which you show such familiarity with, made two related points

a) that Radio 3 should become more 'accessible and welcoming' to a wider audience and

b) that it should not alienate its core audience in doing so.

Since the Breakfast programme is doing so badly, and reach is somewhat down, either the new listeners haven't come, or the alienated listeners have switched off.

http://www.for3.org/news/for3news/for3news.html#Feb24201

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

the outcome of a race to audience size and accessibility is most clearly apparent in the US markets ... crap everywhere except paradoxically for a public sector broadcaster that often rivals the BBC, and as far as Jazz goes easily outguns it, for quality of programming ... the subscription channel HBO is also a compelling example ... however public service is where we are at

a very senior NHS chap said on Newsnight last night [ish] that a system which pooled the contributions of the whole population made for a better healthcare system than private insurances [and given the depradations of the US insurance industry not to mention the UK, he is surely right] but he is surely right in a much deeper sense - we are a better society and people for funding a public broadcasting system [one which has done a far better job than most national institutions since 1945] which sustains and reflects the wide diversity of art knowledge and news in our world .... just as the NHS provides for the most frequent and rarest of illnesses without calling someone who suffers from a rare condition an hermetically sealed elitist who can take an aspirin or lump it .... the same idea of justice prevails in such mass provision, that all minority interests are served and that it is not greedy nor elitist to ask for a high quality of service, and a service congruent with the nature of its content the current R3 management and its apologist here lose sight of the deep founding principles they risk by their present actions and statements and lack of thought

[Quarky]

The Trust review which you show such familiarity with, made two related points

a) that Radio 3 should become more 'accessible and welcoming' to a wider audience and

b) that it should not alienate its core audience in doing so.

Since the Breakfast programme is doing so badly, and reach is somewhat down, either the new listeners haven't come, or the alienated listeners have switched off.

Certainly alienated listeners have switched off, judging from this forum!

New listeners haven't come. I would agree with that too. The breakfast show is just playing with fashionable marketing techniques to attract new listeners.

But we all know what is Classical music. There is a certain immutablity about it, and however much R3 wants to sugar the pill, people won't listen unless they want to hear Classical music.

However there is a lot that can be done within the confines of Classical music to appeal to a wider audience. It's all about musical content in my view. As Calum states " it is not greedy nor elitist to ask for a high quality of service, and a service congruent with the nature of its content ....".

So higher quality of musical content is what I look forward to. This I think depends significantly on the presenter. I don't care for a lot of Petroc's choices, but others , can we agree on a compromise candidate of Martin Handley, play items which are of much more interest to me. If I don't care for the music, then I end up (unfairly) cursing that posh git of a presenter, his social background, the ills of society, etc.

[french frank]

The breakfast show is just playing with fashionable marketing techniques to attract new listeners.

The regular repetition of the same works is part of it - try listening to a pop station for weeks on end! For Radio 3, I would agree, there aren't the same issues (getting a song into the charts). What is familiar is accessible, and keeping up the familiarity/accessibility retains the audience - which is just as important as attracting it in the first place.

But it doesn't take a lot of imagination to work out why familiar/accessible will be welcome to some listeners and very unwelcome to others.

For Honoured Guest the argument seems to be, 'We're invading your pitch and taking your ball. End of. And stop being so selfish!' :-/

[teamsaint]

Contrary to HGs assertion, there has been almost endless discussion of ways to improve the R3 "offer".
A long running thread on suggested pieces for " Breakfast" to consider playing.
Long running discussions on the formats and abolition of " Discovering Music".
Many discussions about how to turn " In Tune " into the great show that it could be.

All of these programmes could be wonderful " entry points" into R3 and its other programming. They offer opportunities to combine entertaining , thoughtful and intelligent presentation styles with varied and quality music that would give audiences some of what they know as well as some of what they might come to know and love.

People frequent this board because they care about music , and they know what great radio can do help their musical and personal journey,not because they have personal agendas.


If anybody wants my opinion, what really turns people off is not the fact that some of R3's output is not to our own taste, (of course it won't always be), but being treated like gullible idiots by the mechanism of 21st century management speak by people whose personal interest is their career, and not the wellbeing of the people who pay for that career.

[Flay]

An excellent post, TS

[Flosshilde]

In some civilised societies, visitors from outside are greeted as honoured guests.

And if the guest did nothing but abuse their hosts? I think they would be shown the door (politely but firmly, this being a civilised society).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Forum is big enough to accommodate favourable comments about the R3 output that most of us deplore (anyone know what happened to Estragon from the old BBC 'boards?) - what I dislike about HG's posts is the unbalanced nature of their content. Whilst the majority of Forumistas are as happy to point out (with an unmistakable air of relief) programmes that they think are excellent as they are to criticise, HG's posts are unrelentingly fullsome in praise of everything that the station broadcasts, and she seems to refuse even to consider the possibility that there's any justice in other people's complaining.

[Crowcatcher]

An excellent post TS.

I confirmed yesterday morning why I no longer listen to R3 in the morning, when I turned on my radio to listen to my recording of "Thruogh The Night" what was being played on 'Breakfast' but Vivaldi's "Four Bl***y Seasons" - can any one wonder why, after loving classical music for nearly seventy years, I turn Breakfast and (In)Essential Classics off.

One thing that horrifies me about the BBC (and I'm a retired employee) is that it broadcasts no less than six 'pop' music stations - R1, R1 Extra, R2, R6, Asian Network and Local Radio and yet no one else ever seems to comment on this largesse when it (The BBC) has more -or-less abandoned any real culture.

And as for R3 treating its audience with contempt I am listening to the evening concert, but with some ire as it was preceded by one of those pointless trailers about some forthcoming programme - R3 I do not need these, I can read!!!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm trying to give Breakfast another chance. This morning I thought it wasn't bad at all - an interesting selection from 8.00 a.m. onwards, though punctuated by an embarrassing phone-in from a listener telling Petroc what he (surely) already knew about Elgar's Starlight Express, and the usual trailer with Radio 5-style background music in the foreground. But the overall presentation had hopeful signs…


…but the changeover to Essential Classics was a sad return to business as usual.