Skelly replaces Cowan

[Nick Armstrong]

I have yet to hear him pronounce Tárrega

[cloughie]

Has it occurred to any of the Rob knockers on these boards that as he approaches hopis 70th Birthday that he may be happy with a lighter schedule and a management that appreciates his input and not having his strings pulled in directions he does not want to go. I shall be very surprised if Mr Skelly is given the opportunity to make the radical changes required between 9 and 12 Mon to Fri, but we'll see or more accurately hear!

[cloughie]

I have yet to hear him pronounce Tárrega, as I don't listen before 0900.

I don't give a fig if he doesn't always get his mouth around some of the foreign names - are we all so damned perfect?

[Richard Tarleton]

I don't give a fig if he doesn't always get his mouth around some of the foreign names - are we all so damned perfect?

We're not all R3 presenters, cloughie - pronouncing furrin names correctly always used to be a Key Performance Indicator for the job. When you strip it down to its essentials, that's what the job is. This particular name is just a bête noir, some might even call it an obsession, of mine

[Karafan]

Oh, please let them both be taken!

A welcome side-effect of any exodus may be that Radio 3 is forced to rehabilitate the likes of James Jolly and Jonathan Swain, and perhaps promote the excellent John Shea from his nocturnal ghetto.

Jonathan Swain: now you're talking. Let's have a bit o' class!

[Karafan]

Rob Cowan said: “I’ve always said that, over the years, Classic FM has been responsible for bringing great music into the national consciousness. Now, after a creatively varied seventeen-year period of absence, I’m delighted to be going full circle, reaching out to a public that’s eager to be nourished by quality repertoire, whether familiar or unfamiliar, as performed by artists who are fully up to the job. I intend to have a ball – and hope my listeners will, too.”

About as awkward as much of what he comes up with on Ess. Cla. these days. 'Artists who are fully up to the job'????

Eeugh. An audience eager to be nourished? By CFM's scraps and bleeding chunks? I'd rather go hungry.

[Stanfordian]

Oh, please let them both be taken!

A welcome side-effect of any exodus may be that Radio 3 is forced to rehabilitate the likes of James Jolly and Jonathan Swain, and perhaps promote the excellent John Shea from his nocturnal ghetto.

Hiya underthecountertenor,

If only!

[french frank]

Has it occurred to any of the Rob knockers on these boards that as he approaches hopis 70th Birthday that he may be happy with a lighter schedule and a management that appreciates his input and not having his strings pulled in directions he does not want to go.

Yes, that's much what I said earlier - not that I've been vocal on either side of the Marmite debate

[Rob Cowan]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

[french frank]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

Hello, Rob, if it is you

I thought it sounded better than Essential Classics, which I've always rated a terrible programme - concept not presenters!

[Bryn]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

Sorry Rob, the dynamic compression applied by CFM makes it a real no, no zone for me. Acceptable for car or kitchen listening, maybe, but through even semi-decent equipment? No thanks.

[Lat-Literal]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

Best wishes to you, and for your new programme on Classic FM.

My principal issue with commercial radio is..........the commercials. The sector was a vibrant alternative to the BBC in the 1970s and the 1980s but the liberalising of advertising along American lines - (a) considerably more ads allowed in each hour of broadcasting and (b) an emphasis on illness (private health/charity/compensation) - has made it a depressing affair.

Perhaps there could be more podcasts that omit the bulk of them?

[gradus]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

Best wishes for the new programme and great to hear from you here, I hope that you might be tempted to post occasionally in future.

[DracoM]

The R3 trails have become a chain of distracting weights round its neck.

The non-stop references every ten to twelve minutes [or in some presenters' cases more frequently] to the name of the programme, the platform, the name of the presenter, the availability online / on app, and the trails for upcoming material on R3 / R4 or TV makes R3 more or less identical in rhythm and structure to CFM, and increasingly in a.m. and early p.m., similar in repertoire and profile.

It is a sadness to have watched this station I love sink into the weary slough of aural cliche. What is more insidious and shaming is that a number of distinguished online stations globally both in Europe and USA are more inventive and bolder with scheduling less familiar repertoire. i.e. the classical music pattern R3 set, that CFM took up and changed, has now to an extent been left behind by more innovative platforms elsewhere.

And all the time the BBC insists on NOT being more inventive and radical in its search for a NEW and younger audience in its programming and commissioning and community support outside the big cities [yes, I agree and accept, a mega hobby horse of mine], and thus the older its audience gets, possibly the BBC feels that it has to be less ambitious because [IMO wrongly] it believes that an ageing audience wants the tried and tested that will not frighten the horses.

For me, that is going quietly into broadcasting goodnight.

[cloughie]

Greetings everyone. Karafan: don't you think it would be fairer to sample my new CFM show before assuming an unpalatable menu? I have some great stuff planned for the first programme (6th January) and have no intention of abandoning playlist standards that I helped established on R3. I've always flown a flag for CFM, even while at R3, and the reverse is also true. Both stations are vital to the country's cultural profile.

Good evening Rob - I hope you'll be giving us the odd blast of Kenton Wagner. Enjoy your change of station.