Tearjerker, Downtown Symphony, Piano Flow, Happy Harmonies and other Saturday padding

[AuntDaisy]

... Laufey Jonsdottir who does the 6-7 'Happy Harmonies' slot said that this was the first of twelve...
Bring on 17 July, I say! - but wait... who knows? What comes after the twelve weeks...

Silly us - it's been a huge success. How long before more of Radio 3 is eroded away?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2021/r3-mood-music

Also broadcast on Radio 3, these two 12-part series build on the success of two previous mood-led music series, commissioned by BBC Radio 3 for BBC Sounds: Tearjerker with Jorja Smith and Downtime Symphony with Celeste. Both proved hugely popular and have been two of the most listened to music mixes on BBC Sounds this year.

Alan Davey, Controller of BBC Radio 3, says: “With the success of Downtime Symphony with Celeste and Tearjerker with Jorja Smith earlier this year, we saw that the immense depth of cross-genre curation really connected with listeners who like to match their mood with music and feel its emotional power, regardless of its genre. With Piano Flow exploring the instruments deeply soothing qualities and Happy Harmonies bringing listeners an upbeat mood-boost with classical, jazz and other dazzling voices, we hope these series continue to bring orchestral and instrumental music to new generations of listeners.”

Does this highlight why the BBC forces SOUNDS users to register and log in? It's easy to select any statistics they want... It also leads to a significant bias against older style listening, e.g. wireless radio, because the listening figures are harder to gather.

[cloughie]

It will certainly continue - I can only assume that the BBC is exploiting some legal loophole that avoids paying streaming fees if the music had been broadcast otherwise I can't see other than possibly a small saving by not broadcasting Through the Night - they seem to have found a slot that only offends insomniac classical music listeners who I suspect are just a small very unimportant band of listeners wheras the intended 'yoof' market is flavour of the moment - after all think where the director came from - selling junk drink to the young via intensive advertising

-

Of course we are - an ageing inconvenience to their schedules! I wonder how many Radio 3 listeners they have lost and how many also on locla radio and radio 2 - do they care - no, because they’ve attracted so many 35 to 55 year old women to their airwaves. Probably so many they can’t count them all!

[LMcD]

Silly us - it's been a huge success. How long before more of Radio 3 is eroded away?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2021/r3-mood-music

Does this highlight why the BBC forces SOUNDS users to register and log in? It's easy to select any statistics they want... It also leads to a significant bias against older style listening, e.g. wireless radio, because the listening figures are harder to gather.

'cross-genre curation' - aaargh!!
If the success of this stuff is measured largely in terms of visits to BBC Sounds, why is it being foisted on oldies like me who like to listen to steam radio as we grope our way into Saturday?

[french frank]

Both proved hugely popular and have been two of the most listened to music mixes on BBC Sounds this year.

I wonder what other 'music mixes' they were being compared with? And certainly if their popularity was on Sounds, why couldn't they be podcasts rather taking away from the TTN slot?

I'm not saying - not for one minute - that BBC PR would ever lie. But I don't think they mean what audiences think they mean. They're politicians.

[cloughie]

I wonder what other 'music mixes' they were being compared with? And certainly if their popularity was on Sounds, why couldn't they be podcasts rather taking away from the TTN slot?

I'm not saying - not for one minute - that BBC PR would ever lie. But I don't think they mean what audiences think they mean. They're politicians.

They may be very popular on Sounds but how much have they been listened to at their broadcast time?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not saying - not for one minute - that BBC PR would ever lie.

[french frank]

"Piano Flow" this morning had 19 pieces - two of which were classical (one piece by Liszt and another by Brahms). Brahms and Liszt? At that time in the morning? Happy Harmonies had 18 pieces, including a piece by Finzi and one by Tallis. In other words, these aren't 'introductions to classical music' - they're the overflow from 6 Music/Radio 1/Radio 2. And what sort of 'mood' are they supposed to be establishing at 5am.? Is it for students who don't have to get up in the morning so are just going to bed at 5am?

But no, it's like when the schools programme was on at 3am - that was just finding a convenient slot somewhere (Radio3, do I hear you say?) which teachers could tape record. Now they don't even have to set their tape recorders: it's done for them.

[cloughie]

Looks like the ‘the powers that be’ at the Beeb have taken over from ‘procrastination’ as the thief of time, and the TTN listeners are the 3 time losers!

[antongould]

"Piano Flow" this morning had 19 pieces - two of which were classical (one piece by Liszt and another by Brahms). Brahms and Liszt? At that time in the morning? Happy Harmonies had 18 pieces, including a piece by Finzi and one by Tallis. In other words, these aren't 'introductions to classical music' - they're the overflow from 6 Music/Radio 1/Radio 2. And what sort of 'mood' are they supposed to be establishing at 5am.? Is it for students who don't have to get up in the morning so are just going to bed at 5am?

But no, it's like when the schools programme was on at 3am - that was just finding a convenient slot somewhere (Radio3, do I hear you say?) which teachers could tape record. Now they don't even have to set their tape recorders: it's done for them.

Why I should stick up for the Rat Controller after Skellersgate escapes even me ..... but all I can see is these are a bridge to Alkers which sets out, unashamedly, to capture yer yoof with The Clock Symphony, Felix’s Octet etc. etc. and has as its strap line “Classical music for breakfast time, plus found sounds and the odd unclassified track” .... found sounds ..... ?????

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Why I should stick up for the Rat Controller after Skellersgate escapes even me ..... but all I can see is these are a bridge to Alkers which sets out, unashamedly, to capture yer yoof with The Clock Symphony, Felix’s Octet etc. etc. and has as its strap line “Classical music for breakfast time, plus found sounds and the odd unclassified track” .... found sounds ..... ?????

Following my 42 years as a teacher, I have stacks of evidence that the yoof do not like to be patronised by the likes of Ms Alker, though she might (just about) suit 5 year-olds.

[LMcD]

They may be very popular on Sounds but how much have they been listened to at their broadcast time?

cf. #408

[french frank]

.... found sounds ..... ?????

I meant to ask about that. What are "found sounds"? I knew there were "Found Objects" or Objets Trouvés in art but "found sounds"? Usually the found object has been modified by an artist in such a way as to enhance, even "own", the object. So I suppose birdsong curated to be heard between Aphex Twin's Analogue Bubblebath** and The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba could be called the presenter's 'found sound'.

** Recourse to Wikipedia acknowledged.

[oddoneout]

"Piano Flow" this morning had 19 pieces - two of which were classical (one piece by Liszt and another by Brahms). Brahms and Liszt? At that time in the morning? Happy Harmonies had 18 pieces, including a piece by Finzi and one by Tallis. In other words, these aren't 'introductions to classical music' - they're the overflow from 6 Music/Radio 1/Radio 2. And what sort of 'mood' are they supposed to be establishing at 5am.? Is it for students who don't have to get up in the morning so are just going to bed at 5am?

But no, it's like when the schools programme was on at 3am - that was just finding a convenient slot somewhere (Radio3, do I hear you say?) which teachers could tape record. Now they don't even have to set their tape recorders: it's done for them.

Well some people do seem to have gone a bit overboard with pubs re-opening...

Course they aren't. It's nothing more than an exercise in box ticking that, unfortunately for the genuine listeners, happens to impinge negatively on them. But that doesn't matter as there are so few of them at that time of day, so eminently disposable. Even setting aside those few who, like me listen to steam radio as she is broadcast, it shouldn't be up to the established audience to have to do the searching for the missing bits of a perfectly good R3 programme at any time let alone in the early hours, in order to favour a mythical audience that wouldn't in any case be listening at that time, if at all.

[Jonathan]

I awoke rather too early and didn't realise what time it was...06:50 and put the radio on. And switched it off immediately as some non classical b*llocks was playing.

Get this rubbish off radio 3!!

[Nick Armstrong]

"Piano Flow"

What is this fluviatile obsession these days? - there’s something called “River of Music” sometime today too.

Bloody silly.

R3 is a no-go area before 9 and after 11.45 on Saturdays anyway, so I shan’t be getting wet.