3beebies aka Breakfast

[aeolium]

Most of the emails & texts I hear being read out are from people expressing their opinions about music. Is that not what this forum consists of? or is it the amateurishness of the opinions expressed that we don't like compared to the expert, professional opinions expressed hereabouts? i.e. we wouldn't mind the emails if they were from professional musicians. Some of the emails Rob Cowan used to read out when he was presenting Breakfast seem to me to have been very similar to messages here e.g. recommending to him or discussing with him particular recordings

Well, I regard the discussions on this forum (and its predecessors) as being essentially the equivalent of virtual conversations, of the sort that might take place in the intervals of concerts or in cafes or pubs. For that, as a form of social interaction, they are fine. But that does not mean they should be elevated to the level of public service broadcasting, as if someone were to take a microphone or videocamera into a pub and start recording. It would be the equivalent of reality TV for radio. For broadcasting surely you want something more structured, more professional, and more professionally informed: music played with few interruptions, and talks or discussions about the music - by professional broadcasters who know what they are talking about - in their place. That's quite different from a melange of short pieces of music, some cheerful and aimless chat by a presenter, a few random opinions off the cuff about the music from listeners emailing or texting in. That's just amateurish, and amateurism has no place in a professional broadcasting organisation.

[mercia]

amateurism has no place in a professional broadcasting organisation.

Agreed.

would you go so far as to say that, ideally, none of the listener interactivity that currently occurs on the BBC, by way of phone-ins etc. on Radios 1,2,4 and 5 should take place?

I should imagine there were objections raised to phone-ins when they were first introduced to radio, whenever that was.

[aeolium]

would you go so far as to say that, ideally, none of the listener interactivity that currently occurs on the BBC, by way of phone-ins etc. on Radios 1,2,4 and 5 should take place?

I almost never listen to R1 and R2, and rarely to R5 (except cricket coverage on 5 Sports Extra) so cannot really comment on those stations. As far as R4 is concerned I think one can distinguish between useful interactivity and the desperate touting for emails/texts almost for their own sake that takes place on some programmes, including Today and PM. The latter I think is tiresome and pointless. There are a few programmes which use phone-ins or audience input in a structured way - Any Questions for instance or Gardeners' Question Time - with an invited panel fielding the questions. I don't see anything wrong with this, or indeed the phone-ins on particular issues on You and Yours, which as a programme dealing with consumer issues is understandably interested in the questions or comments of listeners. Feedback is another programme which obviously would be redundant without the comments of listeners. That sort of interactivity is fine - it is the frantic hunt for interactivity for its own sake, as if in itself it were a virtue, that is the problem.

[BetweenTheStaves]

so, as I said in my message, it's the amateurish content of the texting and emailing that people object to, not texting and emailing per se

No..it is both. The content and also the very nature of texting and mailing in to a programme abut music. I loath audience interaction. I have zero interest in tweets. I do not want to know why the Four Seasons meant so much to Flossie on her way to the Outer Hebrides. It is pointless drivel.

[BetweenTheStaves]

.......
would you go so far as to say that, ideally, none of the listener interactivity that currently occurs on the BBC, by way of phone-ins etc. on Radios 1,2,4 and 5 should take place?

......

Well, if the content of many of the contributions is anything to go by then no, it should not take place. But, in the instance of Radio 4, for example, being primarily a speech channel then I guess phone-ins have more validity. Generally speaking though the value in the content made by most phone-in contributors sets a new benchmark in pointlessness and banality.

[french frank]

The controller's disingenuousness (putting it kindly) is in saying that there is an evident 'appetite' for listener interactivity.

would you say that the BBC as a whole has been incorrect in thinking there is an appetite for audience interactivity? after all, it is all-pervasive in the BBC nowadays. I would think Radio 3 was the very last part of the BBC to 'let down the barriers' in this respect.

It's disingenuous because they have no evidence that the majority of listeners have such an 'appetite'. All they need is, perhaps, 20-50 responses, and they say they've been 'flooded' with reponses. Let's exaggerate and say they've had 200-500 responses. They would still be considered a 'tiny, tiny minority' if they emailed in objecting.

do we consider the old BBC messageboards to have been a form of listener interactivity? I seem to recall 'conversations' taking place on them between presenters and listeners.

Yes, they are a form of listener interactivity of a different kind. But people who post on messageboards aren't necessarily satisfied with pub talk as on-air public service broadcasting. And certainly the idea that because every other part of the BBC has introduced such interactvity (not always without listener resistance) Radio 3 should do the same simply says that all BBC services should be aimed at mass-audiences. At which point, goodbye Radio 3.

[antongould]

Sorry where is this pub talk going on? Sounds very exciting! This mornings discussions on first opera experiences and the polymath that was Saint-Saens have not had an airing in our local since 1974! Or are we talking about Sara's now infamous first tweet?

[french frank]

Sorry where is this pub talk going on?

Here!

[antongould]

surely not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mercia]

I'm sorry but I really wouldn't expect to hear Petroc (or whoever) read out emails rubbishing the idea of interactivity along with ones that particularly answered his question.

"Thanks for all your emails, especially the ones telling me you hate my voice, hate the breakfast programme, hate texts, hate interactivity, hate the head of Radio 3 ...... keep them coming, always good to hear from you ...... "

even if that kind of email outnumbers the positive ones 10,000 to 1

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm sorry but I really wouldn't expect to hear Petroc (or whoever) read out emails rubbishing the idea of interactivity along with ones that particurlarly answered his question.

"Thanks for all your emails, especially the ones telling me you hate my voice, hate the breakfast programme, hate texts, hate interactivity, hate the head of Radio 3 ...... keep them coming, always good to hear from you ...... "

even if that kind of email outnumbers the positive ones 10,000 to 1

... any more than one would have expected to hear critical coverage of arts and music programming broadcast on radio in, lets say, Germany in 1938, or the USSR in 1948.

[french frank]

I'm sorry but I really wouldn't expect to hear Petroc (or whoever) read out emails rubbishing the idea of interactivity along with ones that particurlarly answered his question.

"Thanks for all your emails, especially the ones telling me you hate my voice, hate the breakfast programme, hate texts, hate interactivity, hate the head of Radio 3 ...... keep them coming, always good to hear from you ...... "

even if that kind of email outnumbers the positive ones 10,000 to 1

There's no suggestion that such emails should be read out on air, though, is there? Merely that it is disingenuous to suggest that there is 'an appetite' for listener interactivity unless there is a similar recognition that many people (preferably quantified) dislike this sort of on-air trivia.

If people are tuning in to Radio 3 to listen to music, they don't want to hear listeners suggesting what 'short novels' they like; nor whether Jane Eyre is better than Wuthering Heights; nor difficult Scrabble words. It doesn't even reach the level of intelligent discussion, even if one wanted to hear about language and literature in between a movement of Beethoven's 8th and a Dvořák Slavonic Dance.

[Frances_iom]

so, as I said in my message, it's the amateurish content of the texting and emailing that people object to, not texting and emailing per se

not only that - it is the unwanted interruption - the presenter is paid to give a knowledgeable intro to the music - emails etc to the station can be used as a basis of future intros or even post facto corrections but I don't want to have to hear an unscheduled debate on musicology conducted by tweets etc - however I await your data which indicates that most R3 listeners are keen on them.

[mercia]

I await your data which indicates that most R3 listeners are keen on them.

obviously I can't provide such data and I doubt whether anyone could provide data to suggest the opposite

[french frank]

obviously I can't provide such data and I doubt whether anyone could provide data to suggest the opposite

So on what basis has the new style programming been introduced? As was asked on Feedback: Where did the demand come from?