Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[french frank]

Simple soul that I am, I derive a modicum of delight in occasionally having my suggested 'follow-on piece' selected, just as I do when I 'beat' Susie Dent on 'Countdown'.

This is, in itself, a particularly trivial matter. But it could make one reflect on how much 'pleasing myself' also gives pleasure to others or whether it annoys them intensely. And then whether I care or not

[Roger Webb]

This is, in itself, a particularly trivial matter. But it could make one reflect on how much 'pleasing myself' also gives pleasure to others or whether it annoys them intensely. And then whether I care or not

Watching others enjoying 'pleasure' has always upset puritans somewhat.....when bear-baiting was banned it was on the grounds that it gave pleasure to people, not because it was cruel to the bear!

[smittims]

'Evil is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.'

- Oscar Wilde.

[french frank]

Watching others enjoying 'pleasure' has always upset puritans somewhat.....when bear-baiting was banned it was on the grounds that it gave pleasure to people, not because it was cruel to the bear!

I know I keep banging on about this, but that's because no intellectually rational argument ever comes back to counter it. I will recap and invite attack!

The BBC has a slogan: "Audiences are at the heart of everything we do." That affects their strategies. It means giving audiences what they want and measuring success by how big the audiences are and how much they enjoy what's provided. That turns on its head the whole inspiration for the original Third Programme which involved a vision of what was then considered culturally valuable and should be provided as a public service for anyone interested. There was an assessment of what was 'culturally valuable' which broadly speaking included the arts, classical (mainly) music, drama, poetry, current affairs and ideas. Content came first. It was axiomatic that listeners to such content would be curious, anxious to learn, willing to concentrate, willing to struggle if necessary; and at that time the BBC considered such content important and such an audience important enough to cater for it.

I think there are still people who want such a service from Radio 3. But they don't get it. They get mass media strategies to semi-engage people, to give them what they want, to get them to listen for as long and as regularly as possible in order to increase all the audience metrics. And sadly, more and more, audiences are satisfied to be manipulated as long as they feel catered for on a personal basis. Accusations of elitism and puritanism are simply a sign of how cultural life and thought have become degraded. Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.

That's my analysis. Others are available.

NB Should you capitalise 'puritans' on the grounds that bear-baiting was banned by the Puritans? I.e. Piuritans as a historical term rather than a morally judgemental one?

[antongould]

………….

I think there are still people who want such a service from Radio 3. But they don't get it. ……..

How many such people do you think there are and what do you think their age profile is …… ??????

[french frank]

How many such people do you think there are and what do you think their age profile is …… ??????

How does that contribute to the argument, which is that content comes first and audience comes second? I've no idea of the statistics but if that pool of listeners grows smaller and older, I would blame the BBC and Radio 3 for placing the priority on mass audience entertainment. Lowest Common Denominator.

[Serial_Apologist]

How many such people do you think there are and what do you think their age profile is …… ??????

Why all those rhetorical question marks, antongould???????

All it takes to assess the effects of cultural dumbing down in the main media spheres is there to watch and experience via kids burying themselves in reductionist populist online and mobile phone content, comments beneath Youtube links, the blinkered unevidenced opinions expressed in radio and TV/other broadcast media chat shows, the ever-increasing lack of courtesy in shops, streets, and in society in general, all of which are offshoots or manifestations of the same phenomenon, lack of cultural/intellectual depth. And this is no matter of snobbery - at one time acquisition and depth of knowledge was seen as vital to working class emancipation by working class people. As a corollary it is noticeable how the levels of debate when people are brought together for broadcast political assemblies of the pre-election kind we are now having are raised by the circulation of ideas and opinions they encourage. The vital role of an informative as well as educational medium such as Radio 3 once was consisted in fostering an informed educated society, one of the main benefits of Enlightened thinking. A class-conscious man such as yourself must surely be aware of these influences and effects on people who have very effectively been singled out and turned into obedient individual(ised) consumers?

[Serial_Apologist]

How does that contribute to the argument, which is that content comes first and audience comes second? I've no idea of the statistics but if that pool of listeners grows smaller and older, I would blame the BBC and Radio 3 for placing the priority on mass audience entertainment. Lowest Common Denominator.

I know how frustrating it is, french frank, but keep banging on, for all the worth it really is, is all I can say.

[antongould]

How does that contribute to the argument, which is that content comes first and audience comes second? I've no idea of the statistics but if that pool of listeners grows smaller and older, I would blame the BBC and Radio 3 for placing the priority on mass audience entertainment. Lowest Common Denominator.

i didn’t realise I was arguing or pounding out rhetorical questions ……. many apologies - I would agree 50 years ago there were a fair number of such people about - but, perhaps in my opinion only, there are not that many around these, internet dominated, days. I don’t think much, if any, of the fault lies with Radio3. If you do I, as always, respect your opinion …..

[Roger Webb]

I know I keep banging on about this, but that's because no intellectually rational argument ever comes back to counter it. I will recap and invite attack!

The BBC has a slogan: "Audiences are at the heart of everything we do." That affects their strategies. It means giving audiences what they want and measuring success by how big the audiences are and how much they enjoy what's provided. That turns on its head the whole inspiration for the original Third Programme which involved a vision of what was then considered culturally valuable and should be provided as a public service for anyone interested. There was an assessment of what was 'culturally valuable' which broadly speaking included the arts, classical (mainly) music, drama, poetry, current affairs and ideas. Content came first. It was axiomatic that listeners to such content would be curious, anxious to learn, willing to concentrate, willing to struggle if necessary; and at that time the BBC considered such content important and such an audience important enough to cater for it.

I think there are still people who want such a service from Radio 3. But they don't get it. They get mass media strategies to semi-engage people, to give them what they want, to get them to listen for as long and as regularly as possible in order to increase all the audience metrics. And sadly, more and more, audiences are satisfied to be manipulated as long as they feel catered for on a personal basis. Accusations of elitism and puritanism are simply a sign of how cultural life and thought have become degraded. Tempora mutantur nos et mutamur in illis.

That's my analysis. Others are available.

NB Should you capitalise 'puritans' on the grounds that bear-baiting was banned by the Puritans? I.e. Piuritans as a historical term rather than a morally judgemental one?

I agree with your analysis...in fact this, for years, was my creed almost. I've long argued that, not only is there a place for 'serious' content on our national broadcaster, but it should be its prime purpose...at least those channels that were not specifically 'designed' for lighter forms of entertainment.

In large part I've given up on Radio 3, that is, presenter-led programmes; I simply don't need to be entertained that way. I listen to the evening concert, should its content take my fancy (I greatly miss the lunchtime concert) - last week's Aldeburgh Festival is my ideal evenings 'entertainment'....I rarely watch live TV. French film is my abiding passion...foreign film is another area where TV is failing us.

My daytime listening is largely CD/Lp /streaming based but I do enjoy the discovery of music new to me available on that most astringent Finnish Radio station, YLE. Complete works is the norm, minimal presentation....this afternoon has, von Hausegger, Busoni, Ikonen, Doppler, Berwald and Foote, all complete works, all new to me, if not the composers.

In the days you remember when I had the Bristol shop I did my best to help newcomers to classical music to find a way in...and that was a period ( early 90s---early 00s) when classical music and opera were truly popular amongst a larger section of the population than now. Many were Classic FM listeners, and I tried to get them to give Radio 3 a go instead - little did I know that Radio 3 would one day try to play CFM at their own game!

That I take part in the trivial side of Radio 3 output occasionally doesn't mean I in any way endorse the populist agenda that's been progressively foisted on it.

Yes, majuscule P for the bear- baiting wowsers......miniscule for all the rest!

[Serial_Apologist]

i didn’t realise I was arguing or pounding out rhetorical questions ……. many apologies - I would agree 50 years ago there were a fair number of such people about - but, perhaps in my opinion only, there are not that many around these, internet dominated, days. I don’t think much, if any, of the fault lies with Radio3. If you do I, as always, respect your opinion …..

OK anton - Radio 3 was left as one of the very few *free* mass media disseminating intelligent output up to around the last decade of the C20, when, by gradualistic stages, it began to change into the demographics-driven broadcaster it now clearly is. Defending the standards of the "old" Radio 3 - one of the main reasons why some of us joined the original forum and stuck with the fight when french frank selflessly sought and found us a new home - it soon became apparent that I was not alone here in my insistence that the basis of our "campaign", far from proceeding from a defensive elitist standpoint, stemmed from the benefits that I, with minimal education beyond the 3 Rs, had once derived from Radio 3 broadcasts. My own rationale - to judge by the non-responses to my outlining it - may be different from most others now on the forum, following the expulsions and resignations of the few others with similar views to myself. However, one thing I do believe unites us: appreciation not only of what Radio 3 once offered us as individuals, but its underpinning Reithian perspective of a culturally "enlightened" Britain for its own sake, informed by history and culture, as being an intrinsic "good" - the one the postwar Attlee government on its part fostered by creating the state education and NHS systems now also under threat.

One is not so much laying the fault on Radio 3 as contextualising its slide into demographics and cultural populism as symptomatic of a much wider problem of a malaise that does have a clear cause, or causes. The "cure" does not demand our addressing all or even some of these other issues as Radio 3 listeners, obviously, but at least seeing them as contributing to (I would say framing) what has become of Radio 3 and primarily made social media the ideological means of ideological dissemination today, before which all are expected to bow down and genuflect.

[french frank]

I don’t think much, if any, of the fault lies with Radio3. If you do I, as always, respect your opinion …..

It lies, historically, with the BBC in reducing to almost nothing their serious coverage of the arts. BBC TWO was supposed to do that, but then became a popular entertainment channel like BBC ONE - and BBC FOUR took over. Now FOUR's cultural attempt is laughable (Top of the Pops, anyone?) and the funding inadequate. From my point of view Radio 3 has followed the BBC's lead: its efforts at education/culture also laughable and its funding inadequate. Both the BBC and Radio 3 have their pressures; neither remotely shows the will to overcome the problems they face.

A government has to be, at the very least, sympathetic to what such a public broadcaster and other cultural organisations are tasked with doing. On the contrary it heads off determinedly in the opposite direction.

[Serial_Apologist]

It lies, historically, with the BBC in reducing to almost nothing their serious coverage of the arts. BBC TWO was supposed to do that, but then became a popular entertainment channel like BBC ONE - and BBC FOUR took over. Now FOUR's cultural attempt is laughable (Top of the Pops, anyone?) and the funding inadequate. From my point of view Radio 3 has followed the BBC's lead: its efforts at education/culture also laughable and its funding inadequate. Both the BBC and Radio 3 have their pressures; neither remotely shows the will to overcome the problems they face.

A government has to be, at the very least, sympathetic to what such a public broadcaster and other cultural organisations are tasked with doing. On the contrary it heads off determinedly in the opposite direction.

Oh I'm quite certain the government wants a philistine nation - one that its big business friends can thereby get their claws into, one way or another. And I'm unconvinced that Labour under Starmer will be any better.

[Ein Heldenleben]

OK anton - Radio 3 was left as one of the very few *free* mass media disseminating intelligent output up to around the last decade of the C20, when, by gradualistic stages, it began to change into the demographics-driven broadcaster it now clearly is. Defending the standards of the "old" Radio 3 - one of the main reasons why some of us joined the original forum and stuck with the fight when french frank selflessly sought and found us a new home - it soon became apparent that I was not alone here in my insistence that the basis of our "campaign", far from proceeding from a defensive elitist standpoint, stemmed from the benefits that I, with minimal education beyond the 3 Rs, had once derived from Radio 3 broadcasts. My own rationale - to judge by the non-responses to my outlining it - may be different from most others now on the forum, following the expulsions and resignations of the few others with similar views to myself. However, one thing I do believe unites us: appreciation not only of what Radio 3 once offered us as individuals, but its underpinning Reithian perspective of a culturally "enlightened" Britain for its own sake, informed by history and culture, as being an intrinsic "good" - the one the postwar Attlee government on its part fostered by creating the state education and NHS systems now also under threat.

One is not so much laying the fault on Radio 3 as contextualising its slide into demographics and cultural populism as symptomatic of a much wider problem of a malaise that does have a clear cause, or causes. The "cure" does not demand our addressing all or even some of these other issues as Radio 3 listeners, obviously, but at least seeing them as contributing to (I would say framing) what has become of Radio 3 and primarily made social media the ideological means of ideological dissemination today, before which all are expected to bow down and genuflect.

I agree that the marketeers have taken over . But Reith in fact hated the idea of the Third Programme as he thought it would ring face high culture from the majority audience.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebb...eat%20majority.

this Haleyian concept of porosity survives on both BBC Radio and TV with cross channel trailing trying to entice people who might have dipped their toe into “high” culture waters to dive in. So classical music at Glasto.,

Incidentally the Third programmes literary coverage was very heavily criticised by cultural commentators like FR Leavis whose arguments are pretty similar to those advanced in the forum - superficial and (in addition ) driven by Metropolitan back scratching and log rolling with particular scorn for the micro talents of Louis MacNeice.

[LMcD]

That I take part in the trivial side of Radio 3 output occasionally doesn't mean I in any way endorse the populist agenda that's been progressively foisted on it.

Quite! However, having reached the stage of my life in which circumstances dictate a steady lowering of expectations, I probably find it less difficult than some others to live with most of the changes that are occurring, or being imposed, on the station.