The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[french frank]

not really worth banging one's head against the proverbial anymore then

Still a few tricks to try ...

[salymap]

I hope, whatever else we get, that we get a fair number of good Overtures. There are lovely ones by Rossini, Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner, Weber, and so on.

The are shortish, complete in themselves, usually available in good recordings and often lead to a discovery of the opera later. They shouldn't frighten anyone, they are not dumbing down either.

[antongould]

I hope, whatever else we get, that we get a fair number of good Overtures. There are lovely ones by Rossini, Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Wagner, Weber, and so on.

The are shortish, complete in themselves, usually available in good recordings and often lead to a discovery of the opera later. They shouldn't frighten anyone, they are not dumbing down either.

Agreed (silently)

[Norfolk Born]

Well, on Monday you've got overtures by Brahms and Shostakovitch, which haven't been played for ..oh, it must be days. I listened to this morning's 'Breakfast' and was treated to, among other things, a few minutes of the 'Old Spice' theme followed by 'The Lark Ascending'. How nice it would have been to hear, say, some of the material on which Orff based his 'Carmina Burana' followed by an example of some of VW's wonderful early chamber works.

[salymap]

Well then,overtures by Chagrin, Carse.Adrian Cruft, Ireland, [when did we last hear his Satyricon?] Jacob, Remo Lauricella, Boieldieu, Schubert, [not Rosamunde]......lots out there if they look.

[french frank]

Agreed (silently)

And here. So we have common territory!

[barber olly]

To be sung to the tune of Cole Porter's AT LONG LAST LOVE

Is it a full work or simply a chunk?
Is it something new or the usual junk?
Should I be smiling or wearing a frown?
Or is what I feel dumbing down?

Is it for all time or simply a lark?
Is it RAH I see or Proms in the Park?
Has proper radio 3 been given the shove?
Intervention Please, from above?

[Lateralthinking1]

This is a similar post to one I have placed on the World Music board. [Brighton Gull - World Routes Ending-Moving? - thread].

Late Junction loses 25% of its time (0030-1000). Why is LJ being shortened by half an hour on Tue-Thur? So that TTN can have its full six hours and Breakfast can begin earlier.

I doubt that TTN can be altered as it is made elsewhere. However, and I think it would be useful if everyone was entirely clear on this point, we have all lost out to the attempt at making Breakfast appealing to CFM listeners.

There can be much debate about whether the non-classical forms have too much coverage but actually what has been done here should unite us. I wonder if people who loathe the new Breakfast and won't be listening to it would be prepared to argue that it would have been better to have kept LJ at two hours and lopped the 6.30-7am bit off Breakfast instead?

Under those arrangements, people who want a better classical music programme than Breakfast between 0630 and 0700 would have that with TTN. Those who would prefer LJ to be kept at 2 hours would have that too.

Feedback would be most welcome.

[salymap]

One small improvement I've just noticed is that the word 'performer' seems to have been dropped. It has been appearing in front of everything as I expect you've all seen,making nonsense of the list.

[Anna]

But who, exactly, are these new listeners? The average R3 listener is male, 64 (or 59 I can't remember) but basically not in full-time employment or working from home so with the freedom to listen all day or with a good selection of cds.

So who would be the audience that they want to turn on R3 after Today finishes on R4? Stay at home Mums I guess, the unemployed, students (?) (it's got to be non-workers) but why should anyone switch from Today followed by Start the Week, Book of the Week, Woman's Hour, Hearing the Past (that sounds like a really interesting programme btw), if they don't have much of an interest in classical music. If the BBC are out to directly poach the CFM audience I know a fair number of CFM listeners and that'll be an uphill struggle because those I talk to say R3 is 'difficult' and 'heavy' and the only way they'd switch would be if a well known name (say for example John Suchet or Aled Jones) took over, I don't think Rob has the pulling power.

What I'm asking is how you get people to twiddle the tuner in the first place? They're aiming at entry-level aren't they? (Personally I'm a Today listener but my ideal Breakfast programme would be a TTN type programme and the only chat would be a snippet about the composer and time checks) If they don't get the new listeners and have alienated the old listeners how can they then put things right?

[Bax-of-Delights]

But who, exactly, are these new listeners? The average R3 listener is male, 64 (or 59 I can't remember) but basically not in full-time employment or working from home so with the freedom to listen all day or with a good selection of cds.

So who would be the audience that they want to turn on R3 after Today finishes on R4? Stay at home Mums I guess, the unemployed, students (?) (it's got to be non-workers) but why should anyone switch from Today followed by Start the Week, Book of the Week, Woman's Hour, Hearing the Past (that sounds like a really interesting programme btw), if they don't have much of an interest in classical music. If the BBC are out to directly poach the CFM audience I know a fair number of CFM listeners and that'll be an uphill struggle because those I talk to say R3 is 'difficult' and 'heavy' and the only way they'd switch would be if a well known name (say for example John Suchet or Aled Jones) took over, I don't think Rob has the pulling power.

What I'm asking is how you get people to twiddle the tuner in the first place? They're aiming at entry-level aren't they? (Personally I'm a Today listener but my ideal Breakfast programme would be a TTN type programme and the only chat would be a snippet about the composer and time checks) If they don't get the new listeners and have alienated the old listeners how can they then put things right?

Anna:
FF will have the exact figures for the R3 audience age. I'm not sure male, 64, is the average - although (ahem) that is me. Yes, I work from home (approx 12 hours a day).
The amount of time I listen to R3 has diminished considerably over the last few years. I was an avid follower of CD Masters, a programme that didn't treat its audience as cloth-eared idiots who needed patronising. Since those days we have all watched the slow transmogrification of R3 into a CFM lookalikey. The present Breakfast with Petroc Trelawney, I would argue, marks the final throw of the die into the ring of "popular classics". Audiences, like myself, are abandoning the station and turning to their own music collection. Which does beg the question: who is now listening - and for how long? Once you have pulled on board a new audience, just where are you going to take them? You can't keep turning out the same old pap year in year out as that "new" audience will get bored and tune elsewhere (R4 looks increasingly atttractive).

[Norfolk Born]

Be warned - once you switch to Radio 4 for the 'Today' programme, you start to notice other interesting programmes later in the day. Before you know where you are, you find you're hardly listening to Radio 3 at all. To paraphrase Wink Martindale: 'I know - I was that listener'.

[MickyD]

Shock, horror! I've just come back from my hols and heard a phone-in going on with Petroc this morning - there was a time when we joked that this might one day happen, but it obviously finally has. When did it begin and has it been mentioned on the boards?

[Norfolk Born]

Shock, horror! I've just come back from my hols and heard a phone-in going on with Petroc this morning - there was a time when we joked that this might one day happen, but it obviously finally has. When did it begin and has it been mentioned on the boards?

It began today, and it has indeed been discussed on the boards. NB: 'Classic Collection' has been replaced by 'Essential Classics, 'Late Junction' has been cut to 90 minutes, and other programmes have been moved or removed altogether.

[mercia]

only one phone-call and at least it had some relevance to the ensuing music

I would think the next logical step would be to start Breakfast at 6am and TTN at midnight