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

[Cockney Sparrow]

I've not read the 55 preceding pages, but scanned new entries now and then. Forgive me if this is repetition. We are aware that R3 (or R4,2,6 etc etc) are not their own fiefdoms - there is an BBC layer - manager - (Director no doubt) over all BBC music output. Hence there must be house styles, "directions of travel" etc - you know the sort of stuff evident in the all too true satire on W1A. I'm sure that R3, adapted to its audience, has to show how it is contributing to BBC Music wide initiatives.

Could this programme segment be a response/contribution to this:

“BBC Radio 1 has launched a new streaming service called Relax, Roger Bolton hears the views of listeners and asks the Head of Radio 1, Aled Haydn Jones, whether it really is public service broadcasting, and how he can afford it.”

(Per Feedback, Radio 4, 30 Apr 2021). https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000vjp0

I listened to feedback at the time, and IIRC the material would also be used in podcasts or some such retrievable on searching “Sounds” and thus represented value for money.
Could be that these programmes are R3’s contribution – offered fully of free will, or in subservience to “the initiative”.

[french frank]

I'm sure that R3, adapted to its audience, has to show how it is contributing to BBC Music wide initiatives.

That may be so, but I'm inclined to think the BBC's criteria don't stretch far beyond 'how much does it cost?' and 'how big is the audience?' How could a station which provided, with the traditional Third Programme/Radio 3 remit, something which no other station in the country was providing NOT be contributing to BBC Music? Unless they're simply talking cost, size of audience, demographics rather than music. Oh, I've answered my own question

[AuntDaisy]

When will it end?

Not content with cutting 2 hours from TTN on Saturday - they're now moving things about.
The R3 listings for 19th June show the DRIVEL now starting at 1am, with 4 hours of "Through the Night" from 3am.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schedules/p00fzl8t/2021/06/19

And they look to be changing which of the three 2 hour blocks is lost. From the EBU Notturno listing, it now looks to be Notturno's final one (it was the first) - the middle block usually has the longer pieces.

[kernelbogey]

Personally, losing 0100 - 0300 from TTN suits me better - but no doubt others feel differently.

It's still a nonsense - to use no other word!

[oddoneout]

"Ease yourself into the day" - at 2 o'clock in the morning - Really?
If I'm listening to R3 at that time of night it's because I can't sleep, not because I need to wake up. This chopping and changing is going to greatly increase my risk of encountering dumbtime, given my sleep (or not sleep) problems, so I'll probably have to avoid switching on at all.
damn them all to hell and back - on second thoughts forget about coming back...

[LMcD]

"Ease yourself into the day" - at 2 o'clock in the morning - Really?
If I'm listening to R3 at that time of night it's because I can't sleep, not because I need to wake up. This chopping and changing is going to greatly increase my risk of encountering dumbtime, given my sleep (or not sleep) problems, so I'll probably have to avoid switching on at all.
damn them all to hell and back - on second thoughts forget about coming back...

I think the target audience is more likely to be functioning at 0100 than 0500.

[oddoneout]

I think the target audience is more likely to be functioning at 0100 than 0500.

But are they easing themselves into the day, other than on a technicality as it is past midnight? In any case they won't be listening as it's broadcast, as we know. Perhaps it is assumed that R3 audience is safely tucked up in bed and so won't notice the loss of TTN in a different time slot, or part of a plan to cycle it through the TTN slot until complaints cease. I still don't see why it can't be shared between R1 and 2 night slots since that's a better audience fit. Actually I do know, it's because this way they can claim "new" audience for R3, which is a lie as it's an audience for Sounds, but "previously broadcast on R3" so can be claimed that way.

[french frank]

I still don't see why it can't be shared between R1 and 2 night slots since that's a better audience fit.

But the (sole) aim is to persuade such listeners to 'access' Radio 3 since they would constitute 'new' listeners and could be held up as contributing to R3's diversity and value for money. And it sort of introduces them to classical music, in a way, which is a Good Thing. Obviously, Radio 1 and Radio 2 listeners wouldn't entirely abandon their first choice stations which consequently wouldn't lose anything (worth bothering about - just maybe a few user listener hours).

The idea that this might in some way damage Radio 3 is not considered important. Or not understood.

[LMcD]

But are they easing themselves into the day, other than on a technicality as it is past midnight? In any case they won't be listening as it's broadcast, as we know. Perhaps it is assumed that R3 audience is safely tucked up in bed and so won't notice the loss of TTN in a different time slot, or part of a plan to cycle it through the TTN slot until complaints cease. I still don't see why it can't be shared between R1 and 2 night slots since that's a better audience fit. Actually I do know, it's because this way they can claim "new" audience for R3, which is a lie as it's an audience for Sounds, but "previously broadcast on R3" so can be claimed that way.

Perhaps the thinking behind the retiming of the sort of stuff that's played during these 2 hours is that it might appeal to those trying to recover from a hangover or other form of self-indulgence. That would, of course, mean that it could then be described as a public service.

[cloughie]

Perhaps the thinking behind the retiming of the sort of stuff that's played during these 2 hours is that it might appeal to those trying to recover from a hangover or other form of self-indulgence. That would, of course, mean that it could then be described as a public service.

No, the thinking is that at 3am a Damascus moment will happen as the now ‘chilled out’ revellers will stay tuned and TTN will change their lives and R3 will be immediately become their ‘station of choice’and classical music will be ‘where it’s at’. Meanwhile the day glo pigs fly by!

[french frank]

No, the thinking is that at 3am a Damascus moment will happen as the now ‘chilled out’ revellers will stay tuned and TTN will change their lives and R3 will be immediately become their ‘station of choice’and classical music will be ‘where it’s at’.

In 2002, Mark reported a phone conversation with R3's then Head of Music Programming which included:

He also explained that there was a deliberate and definite policy of drawing in to the network listeners whose original tastes lie elsewhere and encouraging them to move out into what he called the 'other treats' available to them on R3: 'bait and switch' (my words).

I said, "Is this education by stealth?" and he said "Yes". Significant.

If encouraging listeners to try out 'other treats' were the aim, you'd think that they'd at least have tried putting down the 'bait' on the stations to which these listeners were already listening; and that they'd have realised after almost 20 years that trying to lure them over to R3 and try classical music doesn't work.

Of course they're just going to say, 'Thank you for giving us a few more programmes of the stuff we like, with presenters we like. And stuff classical music.'

[oddoneout]

But the (sole) aim is to persuade such listeners to 'access' Radio 3 since they would constitute 'new' listeners and could be held up as contributing to R3's diversity and value for money. And it sort of introduces them to classical music, in a way, which is a Good Thing. Obviously, Radio 1 and Radio 2 listeners wouldn't entirely abandon their first choice stations which consequently wouldn't lose anything (worth bothering about - just maybe a few user listener hours).

The idea that this might in some way damage Radio 3 is not considered important. Or not understood.

The gulf between what is played on the two programmes (regardless of what versions of dumbtime they happen to be) and R3 output,even one of Elizabeth Alker's more wacky Saturday offerings, is so big that the transition just ain't going to happen. This Saturday is a "Prince-inspired mix" for the piano flow slot and dreamy harmonies from The Cranberries, Lizzie McAlpine and Imogen Heap for the next hour's offering. However unsatisfactory the morning schedules are they are still a long way away from any of that. If it were that simple then folks could have got there from R1&2 under their own steam, particularly given how easy it now is to access the vast range of music that's out there.
If R3 and Beeb management are really putting that forward as a justification for disrupting an existing audience and longstanding quality output then they are even less fit for purpose than I thought.

[french frank]

If R3 and Beeb management are really putting that forward as a justification for disrupting an existing audience and longstanding quality output then they are even less fit for purpose than I thought.

Whose purpose? There was a time when Radio 3 managers were well aware of the gaping cultural divide between themselves, what they were trying to achieve, and the BBC's top brass. They tried their best to hold the line; but for more than 20 years now, Radio 3 managers have simply taken the BBC shilling, tugged their forelocks and presided over the slowly declining intellectual standards. Without a murmur of dissent.

[Frances_iom]

Whose purpose? ...

those who recognise that the days of public service broadcasting exist only in the imagination - the future is highly commercial - the masses are always right and the less they are educated the better. The Tories and covid have done wonders to increase the uneducated classes - the BBC justs wants to survive and those lucky enough to have gained an above average education can go hang - after all they are a dying breed.

[AuntDaisy]

Whose purpose? There was a time when Radio 3 managers were well aware of the gaping cultural divide between themselves, what they were trying to achieve, and the BBC's top brass. They tried their best to hold the line; but for more than 20 years now, Radio 3 managers have simply taken the BBC shilling, tugged their forelocks and presided over the slowly declining intellectual standards. Without a murmur of dissent.

BBC shilling = pension & 30 pieces of silver?

Very depressing and made worse by Radio Times' chronicling. "BBC Radio 3 - The Envy of the World" no longer?