What is the purpose of Radio 3?

[Guest]

Given all the talk about the latest umpteenth revamp of Radio 3 by Roger Wright and his minions, it occurs to me to wonder what people think the actual purpose of Radio 3 - and for that matter, the BBC in general - is?

The original charter I believe stated simply that its purpose was 'to edicate, inform and entertain'. The latest, trendy version of this as quoted in Wikipedia is:

'Sustaining citizenship and civil society;
Promoting education and learning;
Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;
Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;
Helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services, and taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.'

Ignoring the meaningless gibberish of the first line and the rather empty verbosity of the last, the rest of this statement appears to make some sort of sense. Nowhere does it mention anything about 'audience ratings', 'market shares', 'competing with commercial stations', 'reaching out to new audiences', 'engaging minorities' or any of the other nonsense that the BBC seems obsessed with today.

As the BBC is financed by *our* money - perhaps it is time we demanded that it returned to its original, non-commercial, purpose - to educate, inform and entertain. In the case of Radio 3 this ought to mean finding knowledgeable and enthusiastic people who care passionately about classical music and getting them to devise interesting, original and intelligent programmes pursuing the highest intellectual and musical standards regardless of transient fashion. You know - like Radio 3 and the 3rd Programme used to do before it was all dumbed down and the 'amateurs' were booted out and replaced with slick 'professionals' more interested in their own personalities and money than anything else?

[barber olly]

like Radio 3 and the 3rd Programme used to do before it was all dumbed down and the 'amateurs' were booted out and replaced with slick 'professionals' more interested in their own personalities and money than anything else?

Don't you mean before the 'professionals' were booted out and the 'amateurs' who know nought took over!

[Word]

I love the idea that the people who work for Radio 3 do so with self-promotion and money as their motivation .
Whilst that may be conceivable in a minority of cases for Radio 1 or 2, or one of the larger commercial stations, we all know that what attracts people to Radio 3 is the music and having to fight off women with a stick .

[eighthobstruction]

Not just any stick....and not swung that hard....it's difficult with a glass of champagne in the other hand....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

We need a BBC ready for digital, for 360 degree multi-platform content creation. Which brings different kinds of creativity together – in technology as well as content – to deliver what we need in this converging world.

Everything begins with audiences. They own the BBC and they should inform everything we do.



We deliver content to those audiences in return for the licence-fee and that content-creation is itself supported by technology and the development of new ways of reaching the public with new services and new devices.



Finally all this activity needs to be supported by brilliant central and commercial services.



So here's our new model for the BBC. In the middle, MC&A.



Around it three new cross-media content groups: Journalism, Audio & Music and BBC Vision.



Next a division with a new name and a significantly different mission: Future Media & Technology [FM&T].



And around that whole cluster, three specialist pan-BBC divisions – Operations, BBC People, BBC Finance – and Worldwide and Resources.



MC&A give us our audience insights and those insights need to be at the start of the creative conversation – informing our thinking and choices – and our output.



So I see MC&A as a creative division, shaping, building and driving our future relationship with all our different audiences.



I want Tim Davie and his team to work more closely with all the content areas, the Creative Director and the division that we are now calling Future Media & Technology.


Let's turn to Audio & Music.



The aim of this group is to deliver not just network radio, but audio content for all platforms from on-demand in the home to podcasts and mobile phones and also to lead the music strategy for the whole of the BBC.



Again, we're trying to build on the success that Jenny Abramsky and her team have already had in developing brilliant new services like Radio Player and the digital radio networks while guiding the BBC's very first service to new peaks of performance and excellence.


And remember that, although we all feel intense loyalty to our immediate team, we're all also part of a bigger team. Part of One BBC.



Now if this doesn't sound like your kind of place, then it's time for you to decide if the BBC is right for you.



People – and I include senior managers and leaders in this - people who ignore the BBC Values and who would rather fight old battles or just sit on their hands won't prosper anymore.



They won't get bonuses, they won't get promoted, and if they won't or can't change their ways, we'll ask them to go. Life's too short and the challenges we face are too big for all of that.



But if Creative Future intrigued and inspired you, if you want to play your part in making it a reality, if you want to help build a friendlier, more collaborative, more creative BBC, then the opportunities both for personal development and for collective achievement are better than they've ever been.



The future will be bumpy – of course it will. There will be moments of uncertainty for all of us. Creating the new BBC will require a lot of effort from everyone. But it's worth it: when we work together, we're unstoppable.



Thank you.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/speeches/stories/thompson_future.shtml

market share technology .... long way ahead of something called AUTHORITY which enables the inform educate entertain .... any old tat will do as long as it is really truly madly whizzy and attracts the hugest numbers of proles ... Thompson is just wrong ...

[old khayyam]

As the BBC is financed by *our* money - perhaps it is time we demanded that it returned to its original, non-commercial, purpose - to educate, inform and entertain. In the case of Radio 3 this ought to mean finding knowledgeable and enthusiastic people who care passionately about classical music and getting them to devise interesting, original and intelligent programmes pursuing the highest intellectual and musical standards regardless of transient fashion. You know - like Radio 3 and the 3rd Programme used to do before it was all dumbed down and the 'amateurs' were booted out and replaced with slick 'professionals' more interested in their own personalities and money than anything else?

Well said!

[Paul Sherratt]

>>we all know that what attracts people to Radio 3 is the music and having to fight off women with a stick


So, what is it other than all those tunes, which attracts blokes to the station ?

[Norfolk Born]

I always thought that one of Radio 3's main objectives was to introduce people to works they might not hear anywhere else. To take an example: had it not been for Radio 3, I would almost certainly never have discovered the music of Peter Sculthorpe. But what is the likelihood of my making such a discovery in future?

[Old Grumpy]

As the BBC is financed by *our* money - perhaps it is time we demanded that it returned to its original, non-commercial, purpose - to educate, inform and entertain.

"Our" money - and that of every other UK television licence holder - most of whom, I would submit, would happily see the demise of radio 3. There are many strengths to your argument, but I don't think this is one of them.