Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[antongould]

Hiya Serial_Apologist.

I suppose the presenters are being paid no matter what rubbish they read out and childish initiatives they push.

I hate being so negative but I can see that R3 management are ruining this once wonderful Radio Station. Eeeeee, those were the days!

Attracting new listeners to 'classical music' is more than playing bleeding chunks and promoting participation in competitions.

What more, in your opinion, do they have to do Stan ... ?? They seem, especially with the now, IMVVHO, dreadful EC to be copying CFM, a station, IIRC, you have praised in the past ...

[Stanfordian]

What more, in your opinion, do they have to do Stan ... ?? They seem, especially with the now, IMVVHO, dreadful EC to be copying CFM, a station, IIRC, you have praised in the past ...

Hiya antongould,

My posts are given tongue in cheek. Nevertheless, I'm quite sad at what is happening at R3 by that I mean the dumbing down. And yes I do admire CFM for what is. R3 was a very different kettle of fish. The presenters are hardly likely to rise up against the policy of the management. I just don't like the current approach! Mainly those competitions, the encouragement of tweets, emails etc. and the playing of bleeding chunks.

I'd be interested to read your views on 'The Continuing Debate'!

[antongould]

Hiya antongould,

My posts are given tongue in cheek. ..............

I'd be interested to read your views on 'The Continuing Debate'!

Cheers Stan
With no tongue and hopefully no cheek ......

My views have been trotted out to the boredom of many in the Eternal Breakfast Debate thread.
I feel the Breakfast programme is a major opportunity to attract newcomers to the music we love. IMVVHO the 150 minutes has improved gradually over time and that some of the views on the forum are slightly off the mark. Recently there was a mild outcry about trailers and a suggestion someone should count them. So I did and found that on the Breakfast show I had analysed the number of trailers was less than a similar analysis 18 months ago. Further the number of pieces played was less and the tracks longer and thus the % of music to talk was higher.
So Breakfast is I feel a programme that can and will attract newcomers.
But from then we should go on to an Essential Classics, or whatever, that has full works that stretch the listener more. The current effort gets very, very low marks from me.
The rest of the schedule contains, again IMVVHO, a lot of good, and better, programmes that can appeal to the old hand and the newcomer - COTW, Record Review, Afternoon on 3, Private Passions and others ...... not forgetting the Proms ....
To shut myself up if Radio 3 was taken from me I'd be gutted and new listeners yet to come would be deprived of something very, very special.

[french frank]

I feel the Breakfast programme is a major opportunity to attract newcomers to the music we love.

The oft repeated response to that (and who could argue with your sentiment?) is how are you going to attract new listeners to Breakfast if they are listening to Radio 2, Radio 4 or Classic FM?

91% of the 15+ population listens to the radio and a large number is listening to it at Breakfast time. What persuades them to stop listening to their number 1 choice which they know and love and instead tune in to Radio 3 to listen to Breakfast? Especially as the evidence suggests that they think of the R3 audience as Them and their programmes as uninteresting?

[DracoM]

<< The oft repeated response to that (and who could argue with your sentiment?) is how are you going to attract new listeners to Breakfast if they are listening to Radio 2, Radio 4 or Classic FM?.......>>

........or at school?

[seabright]

I sometimes wonder who listens to these daytime Radio 3 programmes and the answer lies in the Radio 3 Audience Research statistics. In a nutshell, the figures reveal that they are listened to predominantly by white men aged 61 or over. In other words, elderly gents who've retired and no longer have to work for a living, while the rest of the population has left home with Breakfast still playing. The women of that similar age group are doubtless out shopping or doing other chores and don't have time to sit around listening to the radio. Surely even male listeners have to go out at some time during the day? At any rate, I can't believe they are glued to Rob Cowan or Suzy Klein for three hours at a stretch. I mentioned the ethnicity of Radio 3 listeners simply because according to the research, black and other non-white groups account for less than 5% of those who tune in.

As for Breakfast attracting newcomers, I may be in a minority but increasingly of late I find myself reaching for the off-switch and enjoying a bit of silence when something ghastly comes on that seems quite unsuitable for that hour of the morning. In any case, referring back to "newcomers", surely a 61-year-old white man's musical tastes would have been formed long ago in the past and nothing that's played on Radio 3 is likely to change that. Anyway, here is the Research article which shows that Radio 3 is basically a retired white man's radio station, making it unsurprising that young black teenagers for example give it a very wide berth.

http://www.adambowie.com/weblog/archive/Radio%203%20Audience%20Research.pdf

[french frank]

........or at school?

i've heard R3 is doing or planning work with universities - on the lines of the mixtape (which seemingly even they aren't entirely satisfied with) to stimulate interest in classical music. What form that might take I've no idea.

I have expressed a view that if, say, Elizabeth Alker introduced a programme of classical music on 6 Music where she's already a presenter, it might attract a new audience by increasing the music's street cred. Moreso than presenting Breakfast on R3.

[french frank]

I sometimes wonder who listens to these daytime Radio 3 programmes and the answer lies in the Radio 3 Audience Research statistics.

I know those research findings which date back to 2004, before either Breakfast or Essential Classics were launched. On the whole the results would roughly be expected. Looking at it the other way round: thinking of a 61-year-old (average age) white male, when would he be most likely to listen to Radio 3 anyway?

It's not true to say that R3 is 'basically a retired white man's station'. The average age of the UK population is about 38: you can't conclude from that that 'basically people in the UK are 38 years old'.

[antongould]

.....
I have expressed a view that if, say, Elizabeth Alker introduced a programme of classical music on 6 Music where she's already a presenter, it might attract a new audience by increasing the music's street cred. Moreso than presenting Breakfast on R3.

Seems sensible to me ....

[cloughie]

I just ask the questions - how can the R3 controllers have got it so wrong? ...and then got it even more wrong?

[cloughie]

Seems sensible to me ....

Yes, doesn't require too much thinking outside the box.

[teamsaint]

I sometimes wonder who listens to these daytime Radio 3 programmes and the answer lies in the Radio 3 Audience Research statistics. In a nutshell, the figures reveal that they are listened to predominantly by white men aged 61 or over. In other words, elderly gents who've retired and no longer have to work for a living, while the rest of the population has left home with Breakfast still playing. The women of that similar age group are doubtless out shopping or doing other chores and don't have time to sit around listening to the radio. Surely even male listeners have to go out at some time during the day? At any rate, I can't believe they are glued to Rob Cowan or Suzy Klein for three hours at a stretch. I mentioned the ethnicity of Radio 3 listeners simply because according to the research, black and other non-white groups account for less than 5% of those who tune in.

As for Breakfast attracting newcomers, I may be in a minority but increasingly of late I find myself reaching for the off-switch and enjoying a bit of silence when something ghastly comes on that seems quite unsuitable for that hour of the morning. In any case, referring back to "newcomers", surely a 61-year-old white man's musical tastes would have been formed long ago in the past and nothing that's played on Radio 3 is likely to change that. Anyway, here is the Research article which shows that Radio 3 is basically a retired white man's radio station, making it unsurprising that young black teenagers for example give it a very wide berth.

http://www.adambowie.com/weblog/arch...20Research.pdf

Really ? And might you not say the same thing about other groups/age demographics ?

Many peoples taste widens as they get older, and I mean into middle age, not just into their twenties, thirties etc.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Really ? And might you not say the same thing about other groups/age demographics ?
Many peoples taste widens as they get older, and I mean into middle age, not just into their twenties, thirties etc.

Yes, indeed - but, AFAIK, there isn't a conscious attempt on Radio 6 Music to attract a "different" audience to the Music that they play by broadcasting different types of Music from their usual offerings? In other words, their attitude is (absolutely rightly, I think) "this is what we play; this is where we are if you want to listen to it - as you are very welcome to do". There isn't the odd piece of Scarlatti lumped into the schedules (again AFAIK*) in the forlorn hope that I might be so disenchanted with what's being broadcast elsewhere that I'll hunt around the airwaves until I hear that snippet of Scarlatti and think "Oh, I'll listen to this" and then hang on for the next bits of First Aid Kit, Grizzly Bear, MGMT, and The Breeders.


(* - I notice that R6 has a piece by Teleman on this morning's playlist, so perhaps I'm wrong! )

[LMcD]

Teleman - would that be Graham Norton?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Teleman - would that be Graham Norton?

Not so far as I know - Thomas Sanders, Jonny Sanders, Pete Cattermoul and Hiro Amamiya, according to WIKI:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleman