The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[kernelbogey]

Thirded.
I was unsure when she first began (e.g. on EMS), but her presentation & knowledge work well now. (Although I'd still welcome Lucie Skeaping & Catherine Bott returning to EMS).

She may have had a slow entry as she began to give up performing and teaching - I'm not sure of the sequence.

[antongould]

Thank you. Very much also laurels to our esteemed founder for forwarding my red-tinged rant to SJ with more rational commentary.

indeed many laurels

[Ein Heldenleben]

EH: I think it's good to have someone who can be critical of the BBC while at the same time trying to defend it from unfair criticism - or at least challenge the criticism. When you say that very people would understand the difference [between single and double quotes], you point to the problem of social media - who is consuming it? I assumed that people here, registered members, understand the context and the issues and that very few of them would either dispute the facts of what I was saying or even assume that I had been directly quoting from BBC publications. Perhaps many people here had the same doubt as you. I don't know.

But to be clearer, I believe that BBC strategy has focused on:

Getting younger people to listen to Radio 3
Getting a broader, more diverse audience for Radio 3
Striving to avoid 'intimidating' (a BBC Trust verb) people who are less informed about classical music
Deliberately catering for perceived shorter attention spans (RW stated that in a Feedbak interview).

And I believe that this strategy is the ultimate source of much of the dissatisfation from some parts of the R3 audience: the conclusion is that R3 can't find more airtime for young, diverse, classically uninformed audiences without providing less time to listeners like us. It's about how Radio 3 serves God and Mammon, if you like. I don't much care whether I'm part of God or Mammon in that analogy, but the problem is that Radio 3 is trying to serve two masters.

Has this (quotes ) sub thread mysteriously jumped threads?
Though I don’t dispute your “take “ on things you might be a bit out of date as Roger Wright left in 2014 and the Trust went in 2017. The Trust used to pronounce about all sorts of things but had as far as detail was concerned had very little traction. There is a general push for diversity in R3 as indeed there is across all broadcasting. I don’t think anyone seriously expects that to increase diversity in audience appeal. Things just don’t work like that. Even with Radio 3 - I bet there’s just as much cynicism over what the high ups want as everywhere else
.
I would hazard a bet that the R3 demographic is pretty much what it was twenty years ago - skewed male , AB and over 55. Shifting the dial on that is way nigh impossible unless you fill the schedules with Sam Smith and the like. So what you have now is a kind of tokenism - a nod to youth and some slightly bemused elderly classical fans willing to give it a try but who on the whole prefer Beethoven.

[LMcD]

In 10983: Very few people? Very clever people?

[french frank]

Has this (quotes ) sub thread mysteriously jumped threads?

Not that I'm aware!

Though I don’t dispute your “take “ on things you might be a bit out of date as Roger Wright left in 2014 and the Trust went in 2017. The Trust used to pronounce about all sorts of things but had as far as detail was concerned had very little traction.

Not sure what that refers to. On the thread where we were discussing RW's interview with Mark Damazer I mistakenly (from memory) placed it in 2016 but time flies: it was actually 2012. I agree that the Trust had little influence over management, but it did produce the service licences which laid down in considerable detail what, supposedly, the individual services were to achieve.

There is a general push for diversity in R3 as indeed there is across all broadcasting. I don’t think anyone seriously expects that to increase diversity in audience appeal. Things just don’t work like that. Even with Radio 3 - I bet there’s just as much cynicism over what the high ups want as everywhere else

But the high-ups seem to get their way. There may on the other hand be cynicism as to whether it will achieve anything. It must have been one of the service licences where they mentioned R3 being more 'welcoming' and not 'intimidating

I would hazard a bet that the R3 demographic is pretty much what it was twenty years ago - skewed male , AB and over 55. Shifting the dial on that is way nigh impossible unless you fill the schedules with Sam Smith and the like. So what you have now is a kind of tokenism - a nod to youth and some slightly bemused elderly classical fans willing to give it a try but who on the whole prefer Beethoven.

At one point the average age of the R3 listener was revealed in an online source (can't remember where - the house journal?) and it showed an increase of a year or two.

Just located the Service Licence for 2012, which has this conclusion:

"Radio 3 is greatly valued by a relatively small but loyal audience who appreciate its intelligent, thoughtful and committed tone and content. Radio 3 contributes significantly to the BBC’s public purposes through its focus on high-quality classical music and its breadth of output covering jazz, world music, arts and culture. Its continuing challenge is to develop a welcomingand accessible tone while maintaining its core commitment to high-quality and distinctive music and arts programming."

[LMcD]

More snippets this morning, including one movement of a Vivaldi mandolin concerto.

[AuntDaisy]

More snippets this morning, including one movement of a Vivaldi mandolin concerto.

At least there was no Jools H straight after TTN - just a "LIVE music lives on BBC Radio 3" (Caramel Bunny style) "Live" "live" "lie?" trailer for a Rachmaninov evening.

[oddoneout]

More snippets this morning, including one movement of a Vivaldi mandolin concerto.

I can live with that in the breakfast slot, it's the next three and a half hours of snippets that has me switching off now.

[kernelbogey]

At least there was no Jools H straight after TTN.

His trailer has been demoted to 0715...!

[french frank]

I can live with that in the breakfast slot, it's the next three and a half hours of snippets that has me switching off now.

Does "I can live with that" mean you prefer snippets (29 snippets so far with 20 minutes to go) and would not welcome any long pieces invading the Breakfast snippetry? Or just that you'll put up with it if there's nothing better?

[oddoneout]

Does "I can live with that" mean you prefer snippets (29 snippets so far with 20 minutes to go) and would not welcome any long pieces invading the Breakfast snippetry? Or just that you'll put up with it if there's nothing better?

Neither.

[LMcD]

I can live with that in the breakfast slot, it's the next three and a half hours of snippets that has me switching off now.

I don't think a complete Vivaldi concerto is too much to ask at Breakfast time.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I don't think a complete Vivaldi concerto is too much to ask at Breakfast time.

Yes I reckon 50 per cent of Breakfast was single movements from multi movement works mainly written between 1700 and 1900 - a tiny proportion of global music history . I don’t see why playing the whole of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik would get people to switch off more than what we had : a single movt of that, a single movt of the Vivaldi, a single movt of the Rodrigo Guitar Concerto with Over The Rainbow, some Resphighi , Fingals Cave etc
. It’s all relatively undemanding fare. Is the short piece policy to reduce cost through more speech ? Is it to give the presenter a change to reveal their personality ? Is it to give the (overworked ) producer even more work to do? Is it the result of market research ; or the product of in-house myth and superstition?

i think we should be told…partly because we’ve exhausted this topic haven’t we ?

[kernelbogey]

... we’ve exhausted this topic haven’t we ?

...and ourselves, no?

[french frank]

Is the short piece policy to reduce cost through more speech ? Is it to give the presenter a change to reveal their personality ? Is it to give the (overworked ) producer even more work to do? Is it the result of market research ; or the product of in-house myth and superstition?

Good questions, EH. The single movement point was brought up with Alan Davey, and he indicated that it was something he would 'look into', giving the impression that something could be done about it. The denials that R3 has become more like CFM overlook this point: it's specious to suggest that R3 does play full-length works. Of course it does, now and again, But much more often it's playing single movements and short pieces. With chat in between.

The BBC bosses are hauled before the Parliamentary Select Committee to face questioning and I think it was about 25 years ago that they explained the drop in listening figures as due to 'redefining' the R3 target audience'. *** And that's the fundamental point that I keep making. Change what Radio 3 broadcasts in order to cater for a different audience. From which one can assume that it no longer needs to cater for existing classical music listeners. It seems that tweaks to the jazz and world music schedules are down to administrative convenience rather than a change in the target audience. No vision for Radio 3. Just a vision of who they want to attract to the station.

The Jools Holland programme seems neither one thing nor the other: Not for a jazz audience, not for a classical audience. Just a mess.

*** And Rajar changing its methodology.