Skelly leaving Essential Classics

[vinteuil]

Everyone has their price....

... one of my favourite lines from A Man For All Seasons -

“For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!”


.

[french frank]

Just been reading the (hastily published) press release again. It really is text-book PR stuff, designed to obfuscate. 'The honest and transparent BBC'?

Two 'well-loved' (there we go again!) voices both being given new roles. One is getting Essential Classics, 'Radio 3’s mid-morning weekday show' (which actually has Radio 3's biggest audience), the other is getting the Afternoon Concert another 'hugely popular and important part of Radio 3’s schedule': if that is true radio listening has changed a lot since they started hiding from prying eyes the 'listening through the day' stats when it was the trough between mid-morning and drive-time (In Tune).

Ian an R3 stalwart of 20 years, Georgia only a 'voice' since she joined Breakfast as most of her R3 experience was as a producer.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Just been reading the (hastily published) press release again. It really is text-book PR stuff, designed to obfuscate. 'The honest and transparent BBC'?

Two 'well-loved' (there we go again!) voices both being given new roles. One is getting Essential Classics, 'Radio 3’s mid-morning weekday show' (which actually has Radio 3's biggest audience), the other is getting the Afternoon Concert another 'hugely popular and important part of Radio 3’s schedule': if that is true radio listening has changed a lot since they started hiding from prying eyes the 'listening through the day' stats when it was the trough between mid-morning and drive-time (In Tune).

Ian an R3 stalwart of 20 years, Georgia only a 'voice' since she joined Breakfast as most of her R3 experience was as a producer.

What is the audience for Essential Classics ?

[cloughie]

What is the audience for Essential Classics ?

A mixture of grumpy oldies and 35 to 45 year old women!

[Ein Heldenleben]

I’m answering my own question but French Frank may have a more accurate one. A press release in 2016 credits EC with a reach figure of 900,000 . If that is the weekly reach figure that is the number of people over 15 listening for at least 15mins per week . Have I got that right ?

[antongould]

Just been reading the (hastily published) press release again. It really is text-book PR stuff, designed to obfuscate. 'The honest and transparent BBC'?

Two 'well-loved' (there we go again!) voices both being given new roles. One is getting Essential Classics, 'Radio 3’s mid-morning weekday show' (which actually has Radio 3's biggest audience), the other is getting the Afternoon Concert another 'hugely popular and important part of Radio 3’s schedule': if that is true radio listening has changed a lot since they started hiding from prying eyes the 'listening through the day' stats when it was the trough between mid-morning and drive-time (In Tune).

Ian an R3 stalwart of 20 years, Georgia only a 'voice' since she joined Breakfast as most of her R3 experience was as a producer.

It’s a stitch up .... interestingly Skellers usually tweets each morning what is on the show .... on Monday there was a deluge of responses of outrage re his announcement ...... he hasn’t tweeted since ....... suits are not happy ..... ?????

[cloughie]

It’s a stitch up .... interestingly Skellers usually tweets each morning what is on the show .... on Monday there was a deluge of responses of outrage re his announcement ...... he hasn’t tweeted since ....... suits are not happy ..... ?????

There’ll probably be Suzy’s quick return or Georgia’s early entry next week followed by a long gap before Ian arrives in the afternoon...

[oddoneout]

A mixture of grumpy oldies and 35 to 45 year old women!

I prefer "discerning senior" thank you very much.

[oddoneout]

Just been reading the (hastily published) press release again. It really is text-book PR stuff, designed to obfuscate. 'The honest and transparent BBC'?

Two 'well-loved' (there we go again!) voices both being given new roles. One is getting Essential Classics, 'Radio 3’s mid-morning weekday show' (which actually has Radio 3's biggest audience), the other is getting the Afternoon Concert another 'hugely popular and important part of Radio 3’s schedule': if that is true radio listening has changed a lot since they started hiding from prying eyes the 'listening through the day' stats when it was the trough between mid-morning and drive-time (In Tune).

Ian an R3 stalwart of 20 years, Georgia only a 'voice' since she joined Breakfast as most of her R3 experience was as a producer.

It was this bit that really annoyed me

refresh the daytime schedule.

aka meddle with something that's working OK just for the sake of justifying their(management) salaries. It also makes me wonder and worry what else is being lined up a bit further down the line - alternating a Jorja/Celeste character with SK/GM? Wouldn't put it past them.

[DracoM]

<< It’s a stitch up .... interestingly Skellers usually tweets each morning what is on the show .... on Monday there was a deluge of responses of outrage re his announcement ...... he hasn’t tweeted since ....... suits are not happy ..... ????? >>

Smack on the money!!
Maybe the 'suits' [ha! ] ought to read this Forum regularly to get a sense of what core R3 listeners want / do NOT want.

'Refresh'.................utter, cynical, teenage PR codswallop.

[antongould]

There’ll probably be Suzy’s quick return or Georgia’s early entry next week followed by a long gap before Ian arrives in the afternoon...

..... or they could tell the voters of Hartlepool he is a Spanish spy ......

[Frances_iom]

..
Smack on the money!!
Maybe the 'suits' [ha! ] ought to read this Forum regularly to get a sense of what core R3 listeners want / do NOT want.

It's the Money that's important - R3 with its need for orchestras etc is a cuckoo in the nest taking a significant amount of money for a relatively small audience but more importantly in a sector of the population that advertisers are less interested in - the BBC is in the throes of getting rid of those old Reithian concepts together with the now defunct idea of public service + education - once the TV licence fee tap is turned off then all of this will have to go and until some alternative to advertising and its concomitant attitude that the more stupid the consumer the better, is found and implemented then the current set of grumpy listeners are just p@ssing in the wind. The only alternative I can see other than subscription based non-broadcast services is direct arms-length tax support but (a) the number of channels will need to be reduced (b) the politics of say a low cost regional Gaelic channel or Welsh channel for kids may be acceptable but for R1? ? and (c) does anyone really think a Tory government that has taken us out of a social democrat Europe with an eye on a low tax, American style system would even consider public investment (eg it even stopped much of the low cost World service whose soft sell of British Culture was infinitely better than hundreds of embassies).

[Ein Heldenleben]

It's the Money that's important - R3 with its need for orchestras etc is a cuckoo in the nest taking a significant amount of money for a relatively small audience but more importantly in a sector of the population that advertisers are less interested in - the BBC is in the throes of getting rid of those old Reithian concepts together with the now defunct idea of public service + education - once the TV licence fee tap is turned off then all of this will have to go and until some alternative to advertising and its concomitant attitude that the more stupid the consumer the better, is found and implemented then the current set of grumpy listeners are just p@ssing in the wind. The only alternative I can see other than subscription based non-broadcast services is direct arms-length tax support but (a) the number of channels will need to be reduced (b) the politics of say a low cost regional Gaelic channel or Welsh channel for kids may be acceptable but for R1? ? and (c) does anyone really think a Tory government that has taken us out of a social democrat Europe with an eye on a low tax, American style system would even consider public investment (eg it even stopped much of the low cost World service whose soft sell of British Culture was infinitely better than hundreds of embassies).

There is a great deal of what you say that I agree with but on the future outcome I am not so sure. The many surveys done suggest there is still broad public support for the licence fee- it depends how you word the question. One of the Key objectives of both Putin’s Russia and Xi’s China is to either have the BBC discredited as an impartial news source or , even better , broken up. Quite a lot of UK politicians on all sides of the spectrum are well aware of that which is why a lot of the anti-BBC rhetoric seems to have died down. I believe the World Service was allocated extra funding of 85 million a few years back so clearly someone in government is an enthusiast.

[french frank]

I’m answering my own question but French Frank may have a more accurate one. A press release in 2016 credits EC with a reach figure of 900,000 . If that is the weekly reach figure that is the number of people over 15 listening for at least 15mins per week . Have I got that right ?

Sorry - just back from dentist! That would have been how I would have read it. I can't see what else it could have meant. It seems - compared with CFM's figures - to be in the right area and is quite a bit higher than that of the breakfast programme, especially once that was shortened. As I would see it, the goal of Radio 3 was to build up the mid morning audience, especially attracting new listeners to Radio 3. Essential Classics 'poached' time from Breakfast and according to the commissioning brief was not supposed to go into anything too deeply as that was 'more appropriate' for Composer of the Week. It was the first time R3 had had a seamless 3-hour programme mid-morning. It was supposed to be for 'dipping in and out of', hence the high numbers.

I have no recent figures because, apart from breakfast figures which all the main station release, I only found out about individual programme figures by 'accident' I do know that back in the dim past, CD Masters, a 2-hour programme which didn't begin until 10am had 620k - a highly respectable performance for a programme that made no attempt to be 'accessible', and was for a similar audience as Record Review rather than a general audience. It certainly had no brief to 'attract new listeners' to Radio 3.

[Nick Armstrong]

It’s a stitch up .... interestingly Skellers usually tweets each morning what is on the show .... on Monday there was a deluge of responses of outrage re his announcement ...... he hasn’t tweeted since ....... suits are not happy ..... ?????

Especially as most were copied to @BBCRadio3

But will they care about a mere 166 households putting the boot in? I’m sure the bean-counters will relegate the feedback to a negligible footnote, if that...