The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[aeolium]

Still - look on the bright side of life, sc. It's more varied than the first week of last year

[Suffolkcoastal]

That is true aeolium.

[antongould]

Is Breakfast the main offender?

[Osborn]

Nor do we need any persuasion that a lot of people do: the familiar, friendly voice, the regular news updates, the human interest ... So what then?

We compare this with a style (which we/I prefer) that puts the focus on the music...

You've published this litany so many times ff! Never mind.

I think it certain that early am will always carry dip in dip out magazine style programming. You & your supporters show little evidence of leading or understanding normal lifestyles; don't you talk to your partner in the morning, talk to children, leave the room where the radio is from time to time, wash up, open post, write shopping lists etc? All these things are distractions which prevent ordinary listeners from concentrating on the radio for long periods.

It's a fact that the average listener listens to R3 for only about 6hrs a week. Let's be generous & allocate all of it to Breakfast/EC. Then it's equivalent to no more than an hour's listening per weekday - just one third of 6.30 - 9,30 airtime Mon - Sat. The gross audience is arriving at different times & leaving at different times - it's never all there together so if you want people to hear what's on later, what's coming up tomorrow, you have to run your trailers in every clock hour.

And it would be very bad programme policy to play a 30min composition, because around 50% of people listening to it will either not have heard the beginning & title of the work (and if unfamiliar not have the faintest idea where they are & when it will end), or not hear the end, name of work, performers etc. It would be infuriating & amount to treating people's lifestyle commitments with contempt. Short(ish) pieces are obligatory & genuinely useful; they give a chance to hear unfamiliar works, to hear new CD releases & new artists. If you want full works at that time, use a CD or iplayer.

Now consider that the above indicates that there's about a one in three chance of Mr(s) Average hearing a specific transmission, of say a Slavonic Dance. So 75 SDs over a year would on average be 'heard' 25 times - but most people don't & can't pay continuous attention (the standard industry research counts you as a listener even if you listen to just 5 mins in a quarter hour!) - so 'heard' might be 18 times in a year? Not really overexposure, there are 18 SDs anyway, I think!

I am only saying that IMO the 6.30 - 9.30 programming will follow a 'magazine' dip in dip out format for the forseeable future. I think the execution & content is presently pretty grim & needs attention. It's sure to have been (or will be) researched. Rajar isn't for that purpose (programme strengths & weaknesses) & half understandably you say that the BBC is reluctant to give FoR3 sight of findings.

It would be entirely reasonable for the 'antis' to argue the case for specific improvements & tell 'someone'. Forget about 'remits' etc, those pompous words are a broad brush stroke & do little more than describe the rough boundaries & general characteristics of each segment of the BBC TV & radio package. It's perfectly acceptable for 'breakfast' airtime to acknowledge by its content & style of presentation, the nature of the available audience & aim to fit in with their lifestyle demands.

[french frank]

Great stuff, Ossie! . Normal lifestyle means it's just coming up for supper time and cooking a meal. But, I'm not being ironic - it's good to be given food for thought which I will put into my spinach pie and come back later.

[doversoul1]

Osborn
What would be the problem for the people who lead normal lifestyle of your description if early morning programme were in TTN style but with a few more shorter pieces? There is nothing to stop them from doing whatever they are doing. Beside, they miss announcement about the music if they are happen to be away from the radio regardless of the length of the work played.

but most people don't & can't pay continuous attention

That’s their problem. A lot of people who listen to R3 can and do. Anyway, there is always Radio2 if that’s the problem.

[french frank]

You & your supporters show little evidence of leading or understanding normal lifestyles; don't you talk to your partner in the morning, talk to children, leave the room where the radio is from time to time, wash up, open post, write shopping lists etc? All these things are distractions which prevent ordinary listeners from concentrating on the radio for long periods.

Let's look first then at the audience.

The first point is that the new breakfast show (started in 2007) is not aimed at the Radio 3 audience. It is aimed at attracting a new audience which the BBC claims exists and which would like to listen to R3 if it weren't so 'elitist' (let's not quibble over that word). Breakfast is now a 'primary entry point for new listeners'. The strategy, then, is to aim the programme with the biggest/peaktime audience at people who aren't actually listening rather than at those who are listening. Fine.

Am I and the FoR3 supporters (plus many here who are not official supporters) atypical, not leading 'normal' lifestyles? What do we know about the R3 audience? In the first place, we know that it is not typical of the population as a whole. Average age is the high 50s, well above the average age of the population as a whole. Only 33% are in full time employment, with a further 12% in part time employment. So less than half are what you call 'ordinary listeners'. Talk to children? Well, with an average age of, say, 58, children may well have left home. In any case, we know that Making Tracks was axed because not enough R3 listeners had childern of an age to listen to it.

But still, 'ordinary listeners' have all these distractions which prevent them from concentrating on the radio, you say? They can't concentrate on music, but they can listen to presenter prattle and text in to say what their favourite smells are? They time their going out of the room &c. with the end of a piece of music? What happens when a 10- or 12-minute piece of music comes on? They put off opening their post or writing their shopping lists? They have background music which they aren't concentrating on: so what's to stop them doing anything they have to do?

But the key point is that there is no claim from the BBC that anyone asked for Radio 3 to adopt this style. They did so to pull in a new audience/more listeners. If the old audience which is already listening complains that their interests are being neglected, is it any surprise? And if the potential new listeners are already happy with the breakfast fare they're being served up (be it R4, R2 or CFM) why not let them open their post, write their shopping lists, talk to their children/partner while listening to that station? Radio 3's audience is not falling to some disastrous level: it doesn't need a mass influx of new listeners. We don't have to conform with what the rest of the world does.

[antongould]

l......with an average age of, say, 58, ...........it doesn't need a mass influx of new listeners.

but with that average age it presumably needs some?

[Panjandrum]

but with that average age it presumably needs some?

I don't know what the life expectancy around your parts is, but if you look at mortality rate tables, you will note that the average life expectancy for anyone in the ABC1 demographic, currently aged 55, is approximately 85; therefore, this gives them around another 30 years of listening. I don't think Radio 3 needs to worry about this audience disappearing just yet.

[antongould]

Yes but we are talking average ...........................quite a few will therefore be on "borrowed time" already...............

[antongould]

Interestingly, to me at least, the average age of the callers to the much hated Your Call would seem, from the date of the experience they describe or their age when volunteered, to be well over 58! I'm sure the media analysts hereabouts will understand why this is.

[Panjandrum]

And it would be very bad programme policy to play a 30min composition, because around 50% of people listening to it will either not have heard the beginning & title of the work (and if unfamiliar not have the faintest idea where they are & when it will end), or not hear the end, name of work, performers etc. It would be infuriating & amount to treating people's lifestyle commitments with contempt. Short(ish) pieces are obligatory & genuinely useful; they give a chance to hear unfamiliar works, to hear new CD releases & new artists. If you want full works at that time, use a CD or iplayer.

In response to the self-appointed arbiter of the nation's breakfasting habits, I have to say that this does not chime with my experience. Frequently, I only get to listen to the radio for short periods in the morning. I find I instantly turn off when the 100 Best Tunes CD is played again. However, when a piece with which I am unfamiliar is played (a rare event sadly on today's radio 3) I am far more likely to listen attentively. If I have to turn off before the announcement of performer/composer, I make a mental note to check the website later for details, which is not really that hard is it? Of course, I run the risk that the production team will have got the details wrong, but rather that than hear some egomaniac's bathetic waffle, VW's wretched lark or "the big tune" from Jupiter again.

[Panjandrum]

Yes but we are talking average ...........................quite a few will therefore be on "borrowed time" already...............

And, by the same token, there will be just as many of a correspondingly lower age than the average....

[antongould]

all I am saying is that in any year, sadly, more of your representative million of R3 listeners will make the obits than will your million representative R2 listeners and will therefore need replacing, or not, depending on your point of view.

[salymap]

I can take a certain amount of chat, not much mind. What I object to is single movements of symphonies or concertos, which leave an unsatisfactory gap as one continues the work in one's head. Also the sheer rep itition of some works; just switched off 'Rhapsody in Blue' with a short remark about where it can go.
Worst of all, the thing I thought Iwould never hear on R3 - talking over snippits of the work in a 'trailer'.