The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[kernelbogey]

Kudos! I've had quite a lengthy reply which I'll share when I've taken it all in....

Hurrah!

But stay tuned ...

I'll stay up all night - with, er, Penny G...!

[kernelbogey]

As Pulcinella said, congratulations FF, and to kernelbogey for exploding so graphically.

It was our friend Nick who taught me the art of the 24-point Post Office Red....

[AuntDaisy]

Six thirty a.m., Broadcasting house, London, England:
So Hannah French back-announces the last item of TTN - Ave Maris Stella by Johann Stadlmayr (died c1648 since you ask)... and then we're into a minute of insane orchestral segues and Jules Holland (is it?) yelling about his programme before Hannah can say who she is, what programme she's presenting, introduce the newsreader and all that.

THIS IS AN INSANE, INSULTING APPROACH TO YOUR LISTENERS MR JACKSON.

PLEASE STOP DOING THIS!

... and again this morning.
This time it was a beautiful Lassus motet ending TTN, followed by a brief description by Hannah French, then in to the same shouty Jools Holland (& others) trailer and finally HF....
I was really enjoying the Lassus, then Jools & co. destroys everything.

Please Sam J, give us a break - at least vary the wretched trailers! Why do they have to be so jarring?

[oddoneout]

... and again this morning.
This time it was a beautiful Lassus motet ending TTN, followed by a brief description by Hannah French, then in to the same shouty Jools Holland (& others) trailer and finally HF....
I was really enjoying the Lassus, then Jools & co. destroys everything.

Please Sam J, give us a break - at least vary the wretched trailers! Why do they have to be so jarring?

To get your attention of course - which they are doing very successfully! Whether that attention translates into something positive, ie listening to the programme, is another matter altogether...
I have experienced this rude awakening (in both senses) situation a few times the last couple of weeks due to health issues that have disrupted sleep. Once I've admitted defeat at around 4 am, coming downstairs to lie on the sofa listening to TTN is a good way to relax a churning brain and often around 5-30 drift into semi-sleep - can still hear the music but at one remove so to speak.To be jolted out of that suspended state by this crash bang transition to Breakfast is not at all pleasant. Resentment is increased by the knowledge that not only does it not need to be like that, but that until recently it wasn't.

[LMcD]

To get your attention of course - which they are doing very successfully! Whether that attention translates into something positive, ie listening to the programme, is another matter altogether...
I have experienced this rude awakening (in both senses) situation a few times the last couple of weeks due to health issues that have disrupted sleep. Once I've admitted defeat at around 4 am, coming downstairs to lie on the sofa listening to TTN is a good way to relax a churning brain and often around 5-30 drift into semi-sleep - can still hear the music but at one remove so to speak.To be jolted out of that suspended state by this crash bang transition to Breakfast is not at all pleasant. Resentment is increased by the knowledge that not only does it not need to be like that, but that until recently it wasn't.

This sort of thing suggests that, while the TNT audience can continue to listen if they wish, the 6.30 alarm call is for the benefit of the Breakfast audience. (Radio 3 seems to have many different audiences - actual or potential - if Sam Jackson is to be believed.)

[kernelbogey]

... and again this morning.
This time it was a beautiful Lassus motet ending TTN, followed by a brief description by Hannah French, then in to the same shouty Jools Holland (& others) trailer and finally HF......

[kernelbogey]

...the TNT audience...

Le TNT audience c'est moi!

[kernelbogey]

... and again this morning.
This time it was a beautiful Lassus motet ending TTN, followed by a brief description by Hannah French, then in to the same shouty Jools Holland (& others) trailer and finally HF....
I was really enjoying the Lassus, then Jools & co. destroys everything.

Please Sam J, give us a break - at least vary the wretched trailers! Why do they have to be so jarring?

Glad you agree, Aunt Daisy.

But perhaps Mr Jackson and apparatchiks have listened: the slot was taken today by a much milder trail with Clive Myrie. No shouting, and it fitted the slot like - well, not quite hand in glove, but better than the last two days.

[french frank]

(Radio 3 seems to have many different audiences - actual or potential - if Sam Jackson is to be believed.)

It does have many different audiences - and should, in my view, to reflect the various areas of R3's remit. John Drummond said (inaccurate paraphrase because I've forgotten the exact details) that R3 had 13 different audiences all of whom disagreed with each other as to what R3 should do. Aunt Daisy will probably identify what I'm struggling to remember and quote exactly what JD said :-) .

[Pulcinella]

It does have many different audiences - and should, in my view, to reflect the various areas of R3's remit. John Drummond said (inaccurate paraphrase because I've forgotten the exact details) that R3 had 13 different audiences all of whom disagreed with each other as to what R3 should do. Aunt Daisy will probably identify what I'm struggling to remember and quote exactly what JD said :-) .

It would be interesting to see just how different, and what the Venn diagram intersections would be on some of the disagreements.

[french frank]

It would be interesting to see just how different, and what the Venn diagram intersections would be on some of the disagreements.

John Drummond was notoriously disdainful of audiences. But he wasn't totally wrong - just exaggerating. People do seem to equate what they like and enjoy with what is objectively 'good'; and what they dislike as objectively bad. It's all right to do x on R3 - I really enjoy it. It's wrong to broadcast y on R3: it's awful and I can't stand it. On the whole, though, I would expect that Radio 3 listeners would separate their subjective personal reactions and take a more detached view.

[AuntDaisy]

It does have many different audiences - and should, in my view, to reflect the various areas of R3's remit. John Drummond said (inaccurate paraphrase because I've forgotten the exact details) that R3 had 13 different audiences all of whom disagreed with each other as to what R3 should do. Aunt Daisy will probably identify what I'm struggling to remember and quote exactly what JD said :-) .

Would it be this, from p.335 of Humphrey Carpenter's "The Envy of the World"? (I liked the bit afterwards, so included it for discussion...)

Writing a diary column in the Guardian, Drummond himself observed of Radio 3 that 'everybody knows exactly what they think ought to be done, but the demands are so contradictory as to be completely irreconcilable'. On another occasion, he remarked that 'Radio 3 broadcasts to about thirty minority tastes, each of which is characterised by its intense dislike of the other twenty-nine'. He says that innumerable letters he received during his Controllership of Radio 3, though from highly educated individuals, were

"of unbelievable idiocy, selfishness, and bigotry. Someone would write and say, 'It's perfectly obvious that what Radio 3 needs is a ninety-minute organ recital every evening.' The head of one of the larger polytechnics demanded that I take all piano music off the air. Then there were the people who loathed twentieth-century music, or authentic instruments, or opera in a foreign language. I would spend most of Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning at home answering them - after doing a seventeenor eighteen-hour day during the week. And occasionally my temper would fray, and I would write a rather testy reply, and then they would write to the Director-General or the Chairman to complain.
There's no such thing as 'the music audience'. They like the organ, or they like chamber music, or they like symphony concerts, or they like opera, or the nineteenth century, or new music. But they don't like each other. There is a mass of different audiences. So any schedule you put together is going to displease more people than it pleases."

[french frank]

Would it be this, from p.335 of Humphrey Carpenter's "The Envy of the World"? (I liked the bit afterwards, so included it for discussion...)

I knew it! Bravo! Thirty not thirteen. It perfectly illustrates Drummond's disdain and exaggeration: An unidentified Person said (allegedly) 'what Radio 3 needs is a ninety-minute organ recital every evening' (allow me to be sceptical). That said, Drummond produced some exceptional programming during his tenure. But he was as opinionated a bigot as any of those listeners he accuses. [RIP, by the way ]

[Ein Heldenleben]

I knew it! Bravo! Thirty not thirteen. It perfectly illustrates Drummond's disdain and exaggeration: An unidentified Person said (allegedly) 'what Radio 3 needs is a ninety-minute organ recital every evening' (allow me to be sceptical). That said, Drummond produced some exceptional programming during his tenure. But he was as opinionated a bigot as any of those listeners he accuses. [RIP, by the way ]

The characterisation of John Drummond as an “opinionated bigot” doesn’t tally with what I’ve heard about him from people who worked with him. Mischievous and mercurial with a passionate commitment to public service Broadcasting and classical music might be a better description.

[french frank]

The characterisation of John Drummond as an “opinionated bigot” doesn’t tally with what I’ve heard about him from people who worked with him. Mischievous and mercurial with a passionate commitment to public service Broadcasting and classical music might be a better description.

"He was imposing, inspirational, impatient, irritating, frighteningly secure in his tastes, ready to denounce anyone who disagreed with him, yet with a deep and attractive vulnerability, which endeared him even to those of us who regularly suffered the verbal lashes of his criticism." - Nicholas Kenyon, plus other quotes. He 'gave offence too readily' - and that was from a friend. A difficult man to work with.

Also Jilly Cooper: "I simply could not put down John Drummond's entertainingly poisonous memoirs, Tainted By Experience (Faber)." I read the book but found the man more off-putting than entertaining.