The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[Honoured Guest]

A glimpse might well be appreciated form time to time, but this is more like a ducking stool. There's no escape from it for weeks on end.

"We want to interact with our listeners and give them the chance to meet our presenters and the teams who help make each programme. Audiences always love behind-the-scenes glimpses, and it will be fascinating to get their views in person, and also to introduce new listeners to the station."

Ena, he was talking about visitors to the pop-up studio in the Southbank Centre for two weeks, not about radio listeners with a poor grasp of time.

[french frank]

"We want to interact with our listeners and give them the chance to meet our presenters and the teams who help make each programme. "

Well, 'we want to interact with them' is probably more accurate than the explanation for the various kinds of interactivity that many people hate: namely 'our audiences have an appetite for getting in touch with us'.

Although the last comment has to be invented since there can be no evidence that any significant number of listeners to, for instance, Breakfast - or indeed the entire station - wants to be in touch. How many, out of the 2 million listeners demonstrate this appetite?

This is another misbegotten promotional attempt to attract new listeners (from the large Southbank 'footfall' [sic]) rather than win back the ones they lose by their gimmicks.

[Honoured Guest]

Even a cursory glance at this forum would suggest that a number of regular posters have an appetite for communicating their views on Radio 3. Why would they all have no appetite for getting in touch with the presenters and programme teams? Are they afraid to appear to be a load of nutters?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Even a cursory glance at this forum would suggest that a number of regular posters have an appetite for communicating their views on Radio 3. Why would they all have no appetite for getting in touch with the presenters and programme teams? Are they afraid to appear to be a load of nutters?

Most of us are not a load of nutters who feel need to be famous for 5 seconds in order to ingratiate ourselves with a group of patronising presenters.

If we were to contact the programme to say what we really thought, they would simply press the delete button.

[french frank]

Even a cursory glance at this forum would suggest that a number of regular posters have an appetite for communicating their views on Radio 3.

Off air - and not to Radio 3. The point being made is that 'most people' don't particularly want to hear what complete strangers have to say about their personal feelings as a way of padding out programmes that might otherwise be playing rather longer pieces of music.

Why would they all have no appetite for getting in touch with the presenters and programme teams? Are they afraid to appear to be a load of nutters?

Why on earth would they want to? And if they did, why would they want their comments broadcast to a section of the nation? You can see from Twitter that the BBC only wants to hear the praise and take no notice of criticism, however justified or reasonable.

And we constantly come back to the same point: where is the evidence that this (to us) painful strategy is having any success at all?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why on earth would they want to? And if they did, why would they want their comments broadcast to a section of the nation? You can see from Twitter that the BBC only wants to hear the praise and take no notice of criticism, however justified or reasonable.

This is exactly my point.

I had a boss like this who did consultation exercises but only published the bits he liked. The rest simply vanished, courtesy of the delete button. (A bit of a ideé fixe for me today).

[Bax-of-Delights]

Even a cursory glance at this forum would suggest that a number of regular posters have an appetite for communicating their views on Radio 3. Why would they all have no appetite for getting in touch with the presenters and programme teams? Are they afraid to appear to be a load of nutters?

Just checking R3's Facebook page will show you that there is very little "interaction" going on. Out of the 22,000+ "likers" (i.e. those who will get R3 updates direct on their own Facebook page) less than 10 regularly "like" any of the news items that are posted there and even fewer post any comments or replies. A direct appeal for a response yesterday: Tomorrow on Music Matters we debate the future of music criticism live at Southbank Centre from 12:15pm. Can anyone be a reviewer now thanks to the internet? Whose reviews do you trust and read? What impact do reviews have on performers? How do reviews influence agents? Debating these issues and more will be David Pountney from Welsh National Opera, critics Kate Molleson and Hugh Canning and pianist Peter Donohoe. Tune in - or come and see us! - got zero replies.

But we did get a picture of Rob Cowan on a whirligig. So that's all good then.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I resent the suggestion that I might be afraid of appearing to be a load of nutters! This is precisely the image I have been carefully cultivating for years. The reason I (or, more specifically, "no longer") "have no appetite [to get] in touch with the presenters and programme teams" is that experience has demonstrated that this is a waste of my time. As with Feedback, negative comments are treated at best with patronizing derision: the Beeb thinks it knows best, and it our legal duty merely to shut up and pay the Licence Fee.

I can be a load of nutters and spend my time much more productively.

This must be a difficult concept for you to understand, believing as you do that all is sweetness and light in the serpentless garden that is Radio3. Perhaps your own excessively normal "gettings in touch" do not receive such responses?

[french frank]

got zero replies.

A later invitation received two questions:

1) Where can the poster send his pic of John Scott taken at the organ yesterday (Ans - to Graeme Kay)

2) Where's Tom's woolly? He'll catch his death ...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So much of R3 banter is kidology?

[amateur51]

It must be a natural rather than orchestrated response then, because I find myself doing it too with TV ads, especially the one promoting business cards, in which a woman comes on saying, "They have to convey some aspect of... " and I shout "ME ME ME ME ME!!!!!"

I play it in the local Vue cinema during the Pearl & Dean ads - whenever some hyperbolic ad for the latest must-have 4 x 4 has finished I say "It's only a bluddy car" and someone always laughs Highly rewarding

[MickyD]

I resent the suggestion that I might be afraid of appearing to be a load of nutters! This is precisely the image I have been carefully cultivating for years. The reason I (or, more specifically, "no longer") "have no appetite [to get] in touch with the presenters and programme teams" is that experience has demonstrated that this is a waste of my time. As with Feedback, negative comments are treated at best with patronizing derision: the Beeb thinks it knows best, and it our legal duty merely to shut up and pay the Licence Fee.

I can be a load of nutters and spend my time much more productively.

This must be a difficult concept for you to understand, believing as you do that all is sweetness and light in the serpentless garden that is Radio3. Perhaps your own excessively normal "gettings in touch" do not receive such responses?

Great reply, fhgb!

[James Wonnacott]

Even a cursory glance at this forum would suggest that a number of regular posters have an appetite for communicating their views on Radio 3. Why would they all have no appetite for getting in touch with the presenters and programme teams? Are they afraid to appear to be a load of nutters?

If I didn't live 270 miles away I'd be there to tell them exactly what I think of their prattle. To be called a nutter by you I take as a compliment.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

[teamsaint]

I went to see an Opera tonight.
It was bloody brilliant.

I managed to figure this out all by myself, without raffers telling me it was wondrous or shimmering, katie derham over pronouncing the singers names, or somebody tweeting their opinion to me on my way home. I didn't feel the urge to tweet other people about it either, although I may post more than 140 characters on this excellent board, on the off chance (and god knows why they would be ) that anybody is interested.