End in sight for Classical Collection?

[DracoM]

Can I be the Third Umpire to whom appeals on quality are made?

[Norfolk Born]

Can I be the Third Umpire to whom appeals on quality are made?

You'll have to improve on the very tempting offer already in my in-tray from a Mr. H. Bird (who, though retired, claims to have an unparalleled knowledge of the laws of the game).

[DracoM]

Dickie is a lovely chap from the right part of the world, BUT.............he doesn't approve of all this modern stuff. I can just imagine having Dickie in the earpiece at before, during and after every delivery. All you'd hear from me is the odd groan of protest.

[antongould]

It's an enticing argument, antongould. But where is the evidence that R3's audience was similarly declining? (apart from some hefty falls in the immediate wake of some of the recent changes). And if one is referring to the audience for classical music, rather than the audience for R3, wouldn't more promotion and coverage on mainstream channels be more effective in building a new audience than lowering the standards of R3? Shouldn't the BBC's classical music station cultivate a knowledgeable audience while Classic FM provides the lighter entertainment?

A second point is that whereas new listeners to R3 for the classical music are very welcome, are the methods increasingly being used (personalities/celebrities, 'favourites', undemanding pieces) the only possible methods and are they the best methods for building a knowledgeable audience?

I suppose there is no real evidence and so we are in - we will never know country.

On the second point I am not saying it is the only method but unless I've missed them in this long running debate, I have heard few, if any, others!?

[french frank]

On the second point I am not saying it is the only method but unless I've missed them in this long running debate, I have heard few, if any, others!?

Well, I'd say - play the music . I'd be quite happy for some programmes to play mainly shortER pieces (that's shortER, not necessarily all short), for example in the early morning, to avoid musicological lectures but include helpful background information, researched for each programme so that it doesn't become repetitive.

I feel the aim should be to make programmes enjoyable and informative for the wide range of listeners that they're always rabbiting on about; not to aim them principally at potential new listeners with limited knowledge.

[antongould]

I feel the aim should be to make programmes enjoyable and informative for the wide range of listeners that they're always rabbiting on about; not to aim them principally at potential new listeners with limited knowledge.

But presumably the wide range of listeners you see as wide enough to include the potential new listeners with limited knowledge or are they to be ignored?

[french frank]

But presumably the wide range of listeners you see as wide enough to include the potential new listeners with limited knowledge or are they to be ignored?

No, not ignored. But who says they actually want to send in texts and emails, just because they have 'limited knowledge' of the music? Or don't want to be told some fresh bit of information about a piece that's going to be played? Or that they will be interested in the choices of a series of comedians just because they're well-known comedians? Or that they can't cope with anything over 8 minutes long?

We all have gaps in our knowledge of music, and at that point we are also listeners with 'limited knowledge'. But do we need some sort of special treatment? Introduce the work, a bit of background, then play the music. And instead of ricocheting around with meaningless juxtapositions, build on the newly acquired information by linking works with musical connections.

[antongould]

No, not ignored. But who says they actually want to send in texts and emails, just because they have 'limited knowledge' of the music? Or don't want to be told some fresh bit of information about a piece that's going to be played? Or that they will be interested in the choices of a series of comedians just because they're well-known comedians? Or that they can't cope with anything over 8 minutes long?

We all have gaps in our knowledge of music, and at that point we are also listeners with 'limited knowledge'. But do we need some sort of special treatment? Introduce the work, a bit of background, then play the music. And instead of ricocheting around with meaningless juxtapositions, build on the newly acquired information by linking works with musical connections.

On the dreaded sample of one your "who says'....." did apply to me when I dragged my feeble little bit of knowledge across to Breakfast! Don't tell anyone else but I even sent a text or 2!!
I agree with you about a bit of background but have seen SMP savaged on these boards for doing so - by the why tell me what I already know party - so it's like old Abe Lincoln said but I think we need to know what pleases new listeners at least some of the time!

[french frank]

I agree with you about a bit of background but have seen SMP savaged on these boards for doing so - by the why tell me what I already know party - so it's like old Abe Lincoln said but I think we need to know what pleases new listeners at least some of the time!

To me, this is the skill of the broadcaster. (It's recognised that there's a class of newspaper sub-editor with a special gift for writing good captions to pictures and good headlines; poor hacks, like me, in my press days, seldom achieve it.)

Discovering some snippet of information which is relevant (and not in the BBC's music information database) will be as fresh and delightful to every audience, and I can think of one presenter who's 'a good caption writer' in that respect, with a light and amusng touch. Otherwise, perhaps it's tone of voice? There's the business, nuts-and-bolts information that needs to be said each time. Even new listeners will soon see through the repetition of database material or the information lifted from Wikipedia, both signs that the presenter isn't very well informed and which will possibly incur obloquy .

There's a tipping-point between education and entertainment: should R3 remain on the side of education, or should it stray over towards entertainment in order to attract a larger audience? The Incorporated Society of Musicians in their submission to the Trust said:

"There is a positive recognition of those programmes that do endeavour to educate listeners, but it was felt that too many programmes do not supply useful and interesting information about the piece of music being played [...] A greater level of research is required for presenters with staff support and an increased knowledge of pieces being played; and whilst listener engagement is welcome, the use of listeners to send in ‘information about the music that the presenter should know’ is not."

It has to be admitted that the vast majority of general listeners look upon radio as entertainment and mere background listening. Should Radio 3 simply recognise this and follow the same path - or maintain its serious remit? Does education automatically exclude enjoyment?

[Mark Sealey]

Again, reference to the Third is instructive: listening in the 1960s and early 70s I was one of many hundreds of thousands of listeners who learnt a tremendous amount about music from the informed, sober, approachable introductions and presentation of the likes of Vic Hallam, Peter Barker, Patricia Hughes, Cormac Rigby, Tony Scotland, Tom Crowe and the rest.

That they were urbane, knowledgeable and always very well versed in the music they were presenting is beyond doubt… R3 continuity was a very select club!

That they were friendly and warm is also evidenced by the fact that they are so fondly remembered by so many.

Stuffy? Not a bit of it!

It was not that combination that made writing in to share your thoughts on the first time you heard Mother Goose Suite unheard of (and, although there was no email or texting, there were phones and letters).

It made it entirely unnecessary.

It would just have been… rather silly.

The relationship of those presenters to the music and a series of sustainable assumptions about the listeners made it just as unnecessary continually to have to be advocating it.

But the basic assumption was that those who'd bothered to 'tune in' to the station understood that some background, a narrative about the music's origins, probably some context on the performers were all necessary - in an analogous way to caring about your friends' interests and hobbies or knowing the rules of a sport you like were necessary.

It wasn't considered 'dry', 'old buffer' stuff; probably not even considered 'education'. It was just sensible discourse to support the enjoyment and appreciation of the music.

Since the music itself hasn't changed, this could all so easily have been updated for the C21st without the juvenile wrecking that has acutally happened.

[Bax-of-Delights]

As we are mentioning presenters who remain in one's conciousness long after they have stopped broadcasting can anyone tell me why Christopher Cook(e) is no longer broadcasting on R3 (or maybe he is and I've just missed him). Quite by chance I saw a very short interview with him on our local TV station - speaking as a social historian. It was only when I heard his very distinctive voice did I recognise who it was.

[Don Petter]

message 207

Very well put.

[DracoM]

Mark

What I particularly loathe is the button-holing, 'I'm really your friend and why don't we get together and we can have fun' professional bonhommie. Less is more.

On pop/rock stations, on local radio it has to work like that, I quite see that. But classical music simply does not lend itself to that kind of OTT party-time magazine radio. I tune in for the music, and when presenters draw attention to themselves and the ever zanier packaging, the music gets sidelined or incidental and I lose interest and switch off or to one of the many online classical stations.

WHO tells R3 that that kind of packaging / presenting is what listeners want? Do the listeners say they crave such 'hail fellow well met' cheeriness? I bet you a king's ransom they don't.

So SOMEONE must have decided that the kind of 'sitting round the kitchen table over coffee with you' stuff they do on R2 is what R3 people are going to get, will they nill they. If people want breakfast magazines, there are a legion of stations that do the same. By pretending R3 is just the same as the neighbours mean I don't care a hoot which one I listen to. Surely for a corporaiton trying to find distcinctive voices in a jostling, crowded field that is death? By remaining true to the music with the minimum of info, intro etc they make the station instantly recognisable and thus memorable. To go out of thier way to imitate in CFM etc in a conscious way is to become amorphous wallpaper and commit commercial suicide. They had a distinctive brand, and they are in the process of busily dismantling it and merging into the jungle. Why?

Is that truly the R3 boss's aim? Make it unrecognisable in a very crowded field? I cannot believe that that is profitable station strategy.

I wonder if Lord Patten will be quite as likely to endorse this strategy [ i.e. supine?] as the last Trust Chair was in this regsard?

[french frank]

WHO tells R3 that that kind of packaging / presenting is what listeners want?

Isn't the strategy, though, that this is precisely the style of broadcasting 'listeners' are used to and if they hear the same kind of cheery, welcoming voices on R3, they'll realise that the station isn't as inaccessible as they'd thought?

I can't think that the mass of listeners who discovered the former Radio 3 without the sort of packaging you and Mark describe want this style. But we're not the listeners they're after, are we? The argument we have to win is a different one: not 'listeners don't want it' but 'who/what is R3 for?'

[DracoM]

But the seemingly entrenched, self-blinding, desperation in the scramble for the lifeboats R3 mindset is that they already know what R3 is for - ratings to justify funding.

You can see where they are going: 'if you stand against this brave re-packaging / re-positioning, we will die and then what will you have achieved by your criticisms?'