R4 Feedback covers Radio 3 - again

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  • Serial_Apologist
    Full Member
    • Dec 2010
    • 37678

    #31
    Originally posted by charles t View Post
    Cavatina: Agreed = it's kinda nasty at times here.

    [Please see an attempt to focus on more ultimate considerations on: Cheers.
    Little do you know, my friend...

    Comment

    • Nick Armstrong
      Host
      • Nov 2010
      • 26533

      #32
      Originally posted by french frank View Post
      "Basically, the BBC is chasing ratings, unfairly competing with Classic FM with public funds and committing cultural vandalism: would you agree?"

      and

      "Shouldn't you be fighting Radio 3's corner to revert it to a serious minority station (with a varied content), pursuing depth rather than breadth, instead of yet another 'distinctive' popular appeal station like Classic FM?"
      Says it all really
      "...the isle is full of noises,
      Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
      Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
      Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices..."

      Comment

      • salymap
        Late member
        • Nov 2010
        • 5969

        #33
        Talk about pot and kettle.

        Answer to cavatina's earlider tirade.

        Comment

        • cavatina

          #34
          Originally posted by french frank View Post
          Well, I'm not sure that I have ever been personally presented in that way.
          Not explicitly, but there's a certain derogatory, dismissive quality in the tone in which many people in the media have written about you and FoR3 that, in my view, wouldn't necessarily be there if you paid a little more mind to "spin" and making your case in terms they can understand. As I said, I can't see anything wrong with the way you communicate to people who share your basic values and temperament; it's reaching the rest that's the difficult part.

          For what it's worth, I wasn't suggesting a media course to be snotty; I certainly thought it was useful. Years ago, I completed a course the Los Angeles Opera Speakers' Bureau offered on public speaking and communicating effectively with different audiences...many of these public relations techniques are not at all obvious, and it was quite an eye-opener. Sorry if it came across badly.

          But it is sheer naivety on your part, in my view, not to realise that the media line up with their friends. I'm sorry that the Indie and The Guardian go with the BBC establishment and we're left with The Telegraph, The (Sunday) Times and good ol' Private Eye to balance things out. [I wish it were the other way round.] The journalists who write as they find and will stick their necks out are few.
          Are you kidding? Of course I realise they've bought off and co-opted an increasingly huge chunk of the media and blogosphere from stem to stern. Quite shrewd of them, really. Seeing as how writing letters to the Trust and the BBC isn't getting anyone much of anywhere, perhaps you should take a lesson from them and really amp up the public relations war.

          Instead of feeling chagrined about "media reprisals", I'd see this as a golden opportunity to solidly interject yourself further into the public discourse, exert some serious pressure on them in the court of public opinion, and make yourself a major-league pain in the arse. In a sense, it doesn't matter what they say about you as long as you're playing a big role in shaping the discourse. Flood the media with your message wherever you can--as often as you can-- and it will hit home harder.

          I might not agree with you about a lot of things, but I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to offer up my two cents about being effective.

          Comment

          • french frank
            Administrator/Moderator
            • Feb 2007
            • 30284

            #35
            Revenons à ces moutons, as the the man said.

            The programme is made by an indie called Whistledown. My suspicion (though it can only be a suspicion) is that RW was very close behind the scenes while I was being interviewed or immediately before. But if he says he won't/can't appear on the same programme with me there's not a lot they can do. They either drop the story or they allow him to have his say at a later date. As usual with the media, he gets the final word.

            It's frustrating, but to our advantage is that the BBC is constantly weaving. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them explaining why, sadly, they have to ditch any idea of R3 being the kind of specialised station that it used to be. But they don't do that. They prevaricate (sometimes they tell lies), which gives us the moral high ground as well as the cultural high ground.

            Per ardua ...

            cavatina - please don't interpret my emotions: I am not 'chagrined' over the 'reprisals. I simply accept them as the reality.
            It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.

            Comment

            • Andrew Slater
              Full Member
              • Mar 2007
              • 1792

              #36
              Originally posted by french frank View Post

              "Basically, the BBC is chasing ratings, unfairly competing with Classic FM with public funds and committing cultural vandalism: would you agree?"

              and

              "Shouldn't you be fighting Radio 3's corner to revert it to a serious minority station (with a varied content), pursuing depth rather than breadth, instead of yet another 'distinctive' popular appeal station like Classic FM?"
              These are precisely the questions we should be asking.

              The answers will, of course, be 'No', but it will be interesting to hear how they are phrased ....

              Comment

              • Suffolkcoastal
                Full Member
                • Nov 2010
                • 3290

                #37
                Your questions were perfectly apt and considering thet you were 'set up' got straight to the point ff. We all know that RW cannot abide criticism in any shape so will of course try to avoid being confronted directly. I personally would love to confront him and tell him exactly what I think he and his cronies have done to R3 to his face. One good question to ask him on the CFM front is; If R3 isn't trying to compete with CFM why is there now a correlation between certain works that are frequently broadcast on R3 and works that appear in the yearly CFM Hall of Fame? I note the increase in Rachmaninov's 2nd Piano Concerto since April when it became No 1 in the CFM Hall of Fame.

                Comment

                • DracoM
                  Host
                  • Mar 2007
                  • 12971

                  #38
                  The trouble is, as with Murdoch, that BBC bosses have their schedule ever so carefully managed so that they never meet the real, on-the-front-line listeners unless they have been vetted, their attitudes sorted, questions prepared and answers worked out by their PAs before they actually go in front of a mic or met a real person.

                  My guess is that RW is scrupulously protected from an awareness of the really detailed analyses and cerainly any direct oral engagement with people concerning the casual and irretrievable damage he has engineered in R3.

                  Comment

                  • Serial_Apologist
                    Full Member
                    • Dec 2010
                    • 37678

                    #39
                    Would I be right in assuming Roger Wright was not out talking to queuers at this year's proms?

                    Comment

                    • Serial_Apologist
                      Full Member
                      • Dec 2010
                      • 37678

                      #40
                      Originally posted by Serial_Apologist View Post
                      Would I be right in assuming Roger Wright was not out talking to queuers at this year's proms?
                      My apologies - I just spotted Budgie Jane's message 9 on The Last Night: What Would You Like To See thread, which unintentionally sort of answers my own question, in an ironic way.

                      Comment

                      • cavatina

                        #41
                        We all know that RW cannot abide criticism in any shape so will of course try to avoid being confronted directly. I personally would love to confront him and tell him exactly what I think he and his cronies have done to R3 to his face.
                        BBC bosses have their schedule ever so carefully managed so that they never meet the real, on-the-front-line listeners unless they have been vetted, their attitudes sorted, questions prepared and answers worked out by their PAs before they actually go in front of a mic or met a real person.
                        My guess is that RW is scrupulously protected from an awareness of the really detailed analyses and cerainly any direct oral engagement with people concerning the casual and irretrievable damage he has engineered in R3.
                        That's absolutely not true. At the Proms, he spent an enormous amount of time speaking with people on the steps in front of Royal Albert Hall, and was constantly swarmed by everyone clambering to give him an earful about everything under the sun--some thoughtfully, but many not. Not once did I ever see him lose his temper, no matter how rude, presumptous, boorish, overfamiliar, ill-timed, or intrusive his interlocutors were. And boorish they were: at times, people were so egregiously, horrifically, slobbishly grotesque toward him I was reminded of a [bleep]ing James Ensor painting.

                        For instance, on opening night, I saw a hideous troll of a woman literally grab him by the sleeve as he was walking into the pre-Prom talk (two minutes before it started!) in order to whinge about some trivial nonsense or other. And she wouldn't let go! My God, it was mortifying. Just being a few places behind her in the queue made me want to sink through the floor in vicarious shame. Either that, or take her out in a rugby tackle so he could pass. But no, he stoically heard her out until the staff said something to pull her off him...I honestly don't know how he stands it.

                        I'm sure you can take comfort in the fact that everyone gave him nine kinds of hell out there. Chances are you couldn't come up with any criticism he hasn't heard a dozen times before, delivered far more rudely than you'd ever dare in your wildest dreams.
                        Last edited by Guest; 15-09-11, 20:37.

                        Comment

                        • Paul Sherratt

                          #42
                          >>And boorish they were: at times, people were so egregiously, horrifically, slobbishly grotesque toward him I was reminded of a [bleep]ing James Ensor painting.



                          Gosh what a scene - I wish I'd witnessed some of that. Marvellous stuff indeed ! Is any of it on YouTube ?

                          Comment

                          • cavatina

                            #43
                            Gosh what a scene - I wish I'd witnessed some of that. Marvellous stuff indeed ! Is any of it on YouTube ?
                            Not that I know about-- but some of the audience questions at Petroc Trelawny's "Post-Season Wrap-Up Q&A" were straight out of a black comedy gone wrong. At times, I was having a hard time not laughing out loud. Maybe you can hear it online somewhere; absolutely hilarious. Even worse, you just knew it was going to be one of those talks as soon as it started...I had a small bottle of Chambord in my handbag to make cocktails during the interval, and I felt like passing it up to the front with a note that said "feel free to drink the whole thing--you're going to need it".
                            Last edited by Guest; 15-09-11, 21:04.

                            Comment

                            • Paul Sherratt

                              #44
                              Just out of curiosity cavatina, how is it you are often ( it seems ) so close by to these R3 movers ?
                              Do you collect autographs ?

                              Comment

                              • cavatina

                                #45
                                Just out of curiosity cavatina, how is it you are often ( it seems ) so close by to these R3 movers ?
                                Do you collect autographs ?
                                Oh HELL no! That's about the last thing I'd ever want to do.

                                I attended all the Proms this year--from the first two rows more often than not--so had plenty of opportunities to observe everyone's social interactions and work them over on the old psychological dissecting dish. Trust me, it was as fascinating and engaging as a National Geographic Special.

                                Comment

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