End in sight for Classical Collection?

[french frank]

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?'

The thing that I find striking is that they don't offer this argument (other people who have no special information may do so). They are absolutely silent when it comes to a critique of 'our' arguments. I think they must be persuaded to answer them - to come clean and say that's the reason, and give their evidence. As we know, their weakness is that they don't provide convincing evidence.

[DracoM]

Exactly so.

It is to join the flock as they gallop into the pen - everyone seems to e going that way, so we will.

Sheep rarely ask why.

[ahinton]

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?

Yes, there's much to be said for message 207 and I also take your points here but what seems all too often to get either sidelined or lost altogether in these discussions is the wide variety of presentational styles and standards on R3; it's not, after all, as though there is a kind of inbred house style to which all presenters are obliged - or wish - to adhere. It may nevertheless be the case that the greater proportion of factual and other gaffes tend to emanate from the more chatty presenters although, even in this, one may presume that responsibility for factual accuracy rests broadly with the producer rather than the presenter. One has only to name a few presenters - Macleod, Walker, McGregor, Handley, Derham, Klein - for it to be obvious that their differences of approach are considerable, so there is no obvious evidence of particularity of presentational expectations as might have been the case in the Third Programme days of Barker, Hughes et al. Isn't that at least as significant a consideration as any concerns that some people might have about the styles and standards of individual R3 presenters?

[aeolium]

What I find tiresome is the way the presenter is brought to the forefront of the programme and made as it were the focus for the listener rather than the music (or other content). This, rather than any individual stylistic difference between one presenter and another, is the greatest difference between the role of the presenter 30-40 years ago and that now. It is unquestionably a result of a conscious policy by the BBC and it can be seen and heard right across all its TV and radio stations (including local TV and radio). On TV the presenter continually on screen - even in programmes where a voiceover would allow the viewer much better access to the visual content - is the norm; the radio equivalent is the presenter whose personality is an essential part of the broadcast. Scheduling shorter pieces in more magazine programmes enables the presenter to dominate the programme in a way that was not possible in the past - the presenter is talking for much longer. Understandably this irritates listeners who either do not like the style of a particular presenter or simply wish the presenter to stay more in the background.

[Panjandrum]

What I find tiresome is the way the presenter is brought to the forefront of the programme and made as it were the focus for the listener rather than the music (or other content).

This was the point I was making the other day re Classical Collection: a point which escaped some of our more intellectually challenged members.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i think that R3 is a prisoner of the Thompson ethos at AUNT and Wright is a Thompson apparatchik .... in the end it boils down to the people and the leadership ....

and #207 is spot on, the Third had Authority, it was not stuffy or posh else i would have been elsewhere sharpish ...

the cuts are coming and we should fear for the orchestras over the next few years ...

i do not want to hear on R3, and never expected to, Rob Cowan interview a comic writer about his taste in music ... and inflicting it on us [for good or ill]

to get the R3 audience numbers above 2.5m will entail such changes as to lose the core audience so pursuing that end is to pursue an illusion ...

[french frank]

aeolium puts the point well. In my view there should be a clear division between a presenter - who has either expert knowledge to share or has been closely involved in researching the programme in depth, and an announcer who is not required to do anything more than give minimal/essential details about the music.

Stephen Johnson presents Discovering Music, Donald Macleod presents Composer of the Week. The Hear & Now team are mainly specialists in contemporary music. There are several other R3 'presenters' who would be more than capable of doing this but they're asked to become our friends, to chat with us, to make us feel welcome and 'included'. They host most of the weekday daytime programmes. And, to quote RW, most of the R3 listeners listen during the daytime. So if you really find this type of 'presentation' off-putting, you have the evening concert ... and CotW if you didn't hear it at lunchtime.

There must be (would-be?) on-air broadcasters aching to engage with an audience as passionate and critically enthusiastic as they themselves are ....

[old khayyam]

Spot on, FF. Though i wouldn't mind 'announcers' who had a deep and genuine knowledge of their music. The closer i listen these days, it is becoming clear that the presenters' 'knowledge' is being read from a card, does not represent their opinion, and is, therefore, in no way interesting.

[Paul Sherratt]

old k,

Read from a card / script that, as like as not, they themselves have prepared.

[ahinton]

This was the point I was making the other day re Classical Collection: a point which escaped some of our more intellectually challenged members.

I did just catch on this morning's edition following In the Hall of the Mountain King from you know what (a real esoteric rarity, that) Sarah Walker observing that it reminded her of being chased by a giant troll; now I'm neither sure whether I needed to know that or what to do with that knowledge now that I have it, but since she omitted to specify on which internet newsgroup, I think it best to let it pass...

[Frances_iom]

... but since she omitted to specify on which internet newsgroup, I think it best to let it pass...

partial definition from wikipedia "In Old Norse sources, trolls are said to dwell in isolated mountains, rocks, and caves, sometimes live together (usually as father-and-daughter or mother-and-son), and are rarely described as helpful or friendly"

[StephenO]

I did just catch on this morning's edition following In the Hall of the Mountain King from you know what (a real esoteric rarity, that) Sarah Walker observing that it reminded her of being chased by a giant troll;

Wow - what an imagination that woman has! A troll? Surley not what Grieg (or Ibsen) had in mind.

[ahinton]

Wow - what an imagination that woman has! A troll? Surley not what Grieg (or Ibsen) had in mind.

OK - but better to have an imagination than to have none, surely?! However, if chased by a giant troll, I suspect that our Walker would of necessity do a Runner...

[StephenO]

OK - but beter to have an imagination than to have none, surely?! However, if chased by a giant troll, I suspect that our Walker would of necessity do a Runner...

Sorry - I was being sarcastic. The Mountain King is a troll, isn't he?

[french frank]

observing that it reminded her of being chased by a giant troll

Did she say where that happened, and how long ago?


(The troll-courtiers): Slagt ham! Kristenmands søn har dåret.
Dovregubbens veneste mø!
Slagt ham!
Slagt ham!
(a troll-imp): Må jeg skjære ham i fingeren?
(another troll-imp): Må jeg rive ham i håret?
(a troll-maiden): Hu, hej, lad mig bide ham i låret!
(a troll-witch with a ladle): Skal han lages til sod og sø?
(another troll-witch, with a butcher knife): Skal han steges på spid eller brunes i gryde?
(the Mountain King): Isvand i blodet!


Slay him! The Christian's son has bewitched
The Mountain King's fairest daughter!
Slay him!
Slay him!

May I hack him on the fingers?
May I tug him by the hair?
Hu, hey, let me bite him in the haunches!
Shall he be boiled into broth and bree to me
Shall he roast on a spit or be browned in a stewpan?

Ice to your blood, friends!