The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[french frank]

I have no answer to that. I do not know how she got the job.

It should be said that Radio 3 ran some sort of 'talent competition' for a new presenter a few years back - which is how SM-P landed her job.

[antongould]

It should be said that Radio 3 ran some sort of 'talent competition' for a new presenter a few years back - which is how SM-P landed her job.

Worked for me - alone

[Bryn]

I have no answer to that. I do not know how she got the job.

(But I would like to know!)

However, we do know that Sara got her break via a sort of 'up market' talent competition.

[teamsaint]

The world isn't perfect.
But the BBC has £ 3.5 Bn of our money each year to have a bash at improving it.

Open and fair recruitment practices could fit in really nicely.

SMP, Rob Cowan Pet shop, and all the others ARE constrained by their bosses, and probably need the job. And we would probably be moaning if they got do broadcast exactly how they wanted to, but its not so hard to find workable compromises between popularity and quality , is it?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Worked for me - alone

Not entirely, anton; she has done excellent work on Hear & Now (and her "crowd control" skills at composer/audience discussions at Huddersfield were seriously impressive) - her Discovering Music analyses on the "Brandenburg Concertos" was in the very best traditions of broadcast Music Education programmes. She has formidable talents (as has CB-H) which the sexist, ageist Corporation is neglecting.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I take it the talent competition was based on ability to gush and read tweets and tell everyone how much every piece made them want to dance around the room, the winner landing the grand booby prize - Breakfast.

[muzzer]

The format is the problem, not the presenters. You could hold an X Factor audition for the job and unless you employ some sort of affirmative action then someone like CB-H will always get the job, and she's completely right for it. The access issues need addressing at a much more basic level imho. It's a much bigger issue than R3 can deal with. Console yourselves with the fact that the presenters have to 'read' the headlines on the quarter hour and do all that cringey stuff about tweets. What they can do is not compensate with hints of croneyism - obviously someone like CB-H knows alot of the people she's talking about, PT is much better imho - but again I think that's a result of the format. What would be great would be - instead of the vomitorious 'musical map of GB' or the latest aberration this year I'm afraid its details escape me - is a program/event/thing that builds on one of the "dragging in the new listeners" events, and develops them towards the classic repertoire - from which alot of more popular composers derived their style. FOR INSTANCE - John Barry was influenced by the film scores he heard in the cinema his father worked in, and alot of great romantic composers. Take a classic Barry theme - Bond or otherwise - and trace its roots in Debussy, Ravel and the like, with also the jazz he loved, and show the listener both how the music evolves forward and from where it came. I cannot believe the Beeb with all its resources and with someone like CB-H whose prog on the violin was superb, cannot get its act together to do this sort of thing, and instead we are fed reports of gushing tweets that please nobody. And breathe.

[Radio64]

I'm glad I seem to have got the CB-H (and general presenter thing) debate going!

To be honest it's her presence that has got be back into listening to R3 - and ergo classical music - on a regular basis. I've always had a sort of on/off relationship with classical music (forgive that umbrella term!) but now with Clemency waking me up of a morning I'm definitely in ON mode, and not just for breakfast either .. I'm discovering lots of other R3 programmes like Words and Music, In Tune and I've even started listening to the jazz on a Sat. afternoon.
As I've said before I reckon she does the brekky prgramme really well, I like the format and I haven't noticed any particular excessive reading of 'tweets' or whatever, but hey, that's modern life for you folks. (plus she read out an e-mail from me last week and made mey day/week/year...).

Morning all!

[Thropplenoggin]

I'm glad I seem to have got the CB-H (and general presenter thing) debate going!

To be honest it's her presence that has got be back into listening to R3 - and ergo classical music - on a regular basis. I've always had a sort of on/off relationship with classical music (forgive that umbrella term!) but now with Clemency waking me up of a morning I'm definitely in ON mode, and not just for breakfast either .. I'm discovering lots of other R3 programmes like Words and Music, In Tune and I've even started listening to the jazz on a Sat. afternoon.
As I've said before I reckon she does the brekky prgramme really well, I like the format and I haven't noticed any particular excessive reading of 'tweets' or whatever, but hey, that's modern life for you folks. (plus she read out an e-mail from me last week and made mey day/week/year...).

Morning all!

Salutations, R64.

Happy as I am that you like this format, alas I cannot agree with you. When I lived in France, because of the time difference, my breakfast routine was accompanied by Through The Night. Entire pieces of music instead of 'bleeding chunks', intelligent programming, a soothing voice when it occasionally appears instead of the jollity overload of a Chatty Cathy doll, no depressing news updates, trailers, or reviews of the papers (R4's remit, surely?!)... O, Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

If people want a chatty, bitty breakfast show, couldn't they simply turn on Classic FM?

[Radio64]

Salutations, R64.

Happy as I am that you like this format, alas I cannot agree with you. When I lived in France, because of the time difference, my breakfast routine was accompanied by Through The Night. Entire pieces of music instead of 'bleeding chunks', intelligent programming, a soothing voice when it occasionally appears instead of the jollity overload of a Chatty Cathy doll, no depressing news updates, trailers, or reviews of the papers (R4's remit, surely?!)... O, Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very heaven!

If people want a chatty, bitty breakfast show, couldn't they simply turn on Classic FM?

Greetings Thropples... ah well each to his own. Actually Breakfast coincides very nicely with me getting in the car at 7.30 CET to drive to work, and if I'm lucky early-ish morning office is also fairly quiet so I can listen on.

De gustibus non est disputandum .. but we may well debate, that's what forums are for!

[teamsaint]

Greetings Thropples... ah well each to his own. Actually Breakfast coincides very nicely with me getting in the car at 7.30 CET to drive to work, and if I'm lucky early-ish morning office is also fairly quiet so I can listen on.

De gustibus non est disputandum .. but we may well debate, that's what forums are for!

Very interesting to read your opinions , Rads. However, I don't think you have got the hang of this thread yet. Read back a few hundred pages or so, I'm sure you will quickly come to understand.
And how do you manage to hear" Readybrek" in your car in Italy? devilish .

[Old Grumpy]

Very interesting to read your opinions , Rads. However, I don't think you have got the hang of this thread yet. Read back a few hundred pages or so, I'm sure you will quickly come to understand.
And how do you manage to hear" Readybrek" in your car in Italy? devilish .

There are still one or two of us who adhere to Breakfast in our car!

I also was wondering how R3 is delivered contemporaneously to Radio64's in-car system in Italy.

OG

[french frank]

I thought it meant that he could listen until 7.30 CET (8.30 here) when he had to drive to work?

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought it meant that he could listen until 7.30 CET (8.30 here) when he had to drive to work?

Except 7.30 CET is 6.30 here!

Enlighten us, Radders!!

[Radio64]

Morning pals!

Yes 7.30 here is 6.30 there and thus when Brekky Show starts up, n'est-ce pas? (admittedly I'm always a tad late so I rarely catch the very beginning...)

I can pick it up on my Samsung "smart"phone via the BBC Player (radio only) app wotsit, which is then wired into in-car system via the AUX jack thingy. Bob's yer uncle! Reception can often be annoyingly intermittent but the odd brief silence is a small price to pay.

I'm not really sure how it works but I suppose it's the same technology as digital radio. It used to be that I could only receive via wi-fi connection but now it works almost everywhere.

Thankfully BBC radio channels and most programmes can be freely received outside the UK via internet, but not the telly.

Buona giornata.