Essential Classics - The Continuing Debate

[french frank]

I am puzzled as to what your problem is with “ .... new young ...” people ......

Could be that they are likely to judge the audience's tastes by their own, whereas the average age of the Essential Classics audience is 62.

And if Radio 3 is trying to tailor a programme specially to appeal to Classic FM's late morning audience, set at a similar elementary level but without commercial breaks, there seems to be no way to convince an audience which likes it that Radio 3 ought to be targeting a different audience - even if that means losing the refugees from the CFM ads.

Just because a listener enjoys the programme as it is doesn't mean that that listener would cease to enjoy it if the style and content changed.

[oddoneout]

Skellers has IMVVHO changed little, if at all, since his promotion ..... he never ignored tweets but he always took the Michael out of a significant number and still does. .

One that stuck in my mind was a 'thank you for that, you win first prize........doing the washing up'. There was also the swooning vicar, and Dives and Lanarkshire.
I'm not sure what those so singled out feel about it but I'm afraid I find the somewhat subversive nature of his comments amusing; by now one would hope that those who venture into this particular public arena know what to expect. Whether it should be on R3 is another matter, but I can't help feeling that having a dig sometimes at pretension isn't such a bad thing.
And yes I have also heard things new to me, which is something I expect of R3.

[Stanfordian]

Skellers has IMVVHO changed little, if at all, since his promotion ..... he never ignored tweets but he always took the Michael out of a significant number and still does. I feel the tweets / emails in response to the R3 playlist are interesting and often bring in composers new to me - who often get played. I am sure it is not stage managed and often even three pieces are played. I am puzzled as to what your problem is with “ .... new young ...” people ......

I'm really glad you enjoy it all so much! But I don't expect you to have the same view as me or as you say same "problem" with it. Since when does an opinion become a "problem", I suppose only when you don't like the opinion that's being expressed. In which case it seems that have a "problem" with me having a "problem". Ha!

As alert as usual french frank has completely understood my point when stating "Could be that they are likely to judge the audience's tastes by their own."

[antongould]

I'm really glad you enjoy it all so much! But I don't expect you to have the same view as me or as you say same "problem" with it. Since when does an opinion become a "problem", I suppose only when you don't like the opinion that's being expressed. In which case it seems that have a "problem" with me having a "problem". Ha!

As alert as usual french frank has completely understood my point when stating "Could be that they are likely to judge the audience's tastes by their own."

“As soon as a newspaper gets new young reviewer in for films and tv programmes I instinctively know that I won't be agreeing.” Seems to me,but obviously not to ff and yourself, a mild problem - have you never agreed with such a, new young, reviewer .... ??? Clive James was new, and like us, young at some point in his career ....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Skellers has IMVVHO changed little, if at all, since his promotion ..... he never ignored tweets but he always took the Michael out of a significant number and still does. I feel the tweets / emails in response to the R3 playlist are interesting and often bring in composers new to me - who often get played. I am sure it is not stage managed and often even three pieces are played. I am puzzled as to what your problem is with “ .... new young ...” people ......

Well, it's hardly a "promotion" to become a classical DJ.

If the tweexters introduce you to new things, that is indeed a good thing - except that forcing all listeners to endure the reading out of these messages, or the meaningless lists of names, is a complete waste of time. By all means pass on the information, but we do not need to know the source - just the knowledge.

Young listeners are no more likely to be impressed by this charade than more seasoned ones. I've worked with young people throughout my career, and it's evident that there are both thoughtful people and utter fools from the cradle to the grave. And it's folly to imagine that young people want to be patronised. Indeed, they can generally see right through it.

[french frank]

The root of the trouble seems to me to be that the commissioning brief - what Radio 3 is asking for - is for a programme which is "strongly audience focused" [sic]. If I were commissioning a programme for Radio 3, I would say that it should be "strongly content focused".

Management should be clear about what Radio 3's function is, not who is listening, who is not listening, who they want to be listening, and then cobbling together a programme on the basis of what the collective audience will enjoy.

If they have to have a programme stretching over three hours (I think three subject-focused programmes would be better), surely they could manage at least two full length works - a string quartet, a piano sonata, a symphony, a concerto …?

It seems that both Breakfast and Essential Classics cater principally, not so much for people who have the attention span of a gnat as for people who don't.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The root of the trouble seems to me to be that the commissioning brief - what Radio 3 is asking for - is for a programme which is "strongly audience focused" [sic]. If I were commissioning a programme for Radio 3, I would say that it should be "strongly content focused".

Exactly.

It seems that both Breakfast and Essential Classics cater principally, not so much for people who have the attention span of a gnat as for people who don't.

[antongould]

Well, it's hardly a "promotion" to become a classical DJ.

If the tweexters introduce you to new things, that is indeed a good thing - except that forcing all listeners to endure the reading out of these messages, or the meaningless lists of names, is a complete waste of time. By all means pass on the information, but we do not need to know the source - just the knowledge.

Young listeners are no more likely to be impressed by this charade than more seasoned ones. I've worked with young people throughout my career, and it's evident that there are both thoughtful people and utter fools from the cradle to the grave. And it's folly to imagine that young people want to be patronised. Indeed, they can generally see right through it.

I don’t disagree with you about naming the tweeter ..... but I think we both know why it is done and it does enable Skellers to build up his weather picture of the UK and beyond .... !!!

And like you I have nothing but respect for the views and opinions of the new and the young but I feel, and I may be wrong, that they would be more at peace with the Skellers style of 2018 than that of his predecessor’s of 1968. As ff has rightly said EC was commissioned as an interactive programme, presumably in the view this would attract and keep new listeners. If the next two sets of RAJAR figures show more people listening - is that a good thing ... ???

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

RAJAR figures mean absolutely zilch. The EC/Breakfast figures would rocket if they called them a single programme (which would be no more than the truth). Similarly, they would plummet if they were divided into 6 1-hour programmes. Yet the listenership would be unchanged.

[french frank]

RAJAR figures mean absolutely zilch. The EC/Breakfast figures would rocket if they called them a single programme (which would be no more than the truth). Similarly, they would plummet if they were divided into 6 1-hour programmes. Yet the listenership would be unchanged.

RAJAR figures don't mean "zilch", but you are right that the programme figures are an aggregated figure of all listeners who tune in during a particular time for at least 5 minutes. So one three-hour programme between 9am and midday will gather more listeners than three programmes, individually, at 9-10, 10-11 and 11-12. And one programme from 6.30-to midday would have more than the three-hour programme.

Since the populist programmes on Classic FM have more listeners than programmes at the same time on Radio 3, logically you might expect the Radio 3 figures to rise the more populist the programmes become. That's the point at which managerial integrity arises: whether to deliberately become more populist in order to get more listeners, or to stick to Radio 3's traditional remit in providing a station broadcasting to a higher level - and a smaller audience.

To all BBC managers today, it's anathema to target a 'smaller audience': whatever the genre it has to reach the widest possible audience, even if the strategy is self-contradictory.

[Richard Tarleton]

Thought for the Day from Joyce DiDonato

[peterthekeys]

trifles, chestnuts, lollipops and bleeding chunks

As I'm not working today (bank holiday), I decided to try Essential Classics again after not having listened to it for several months.

Schubert Unfinished Symphony (more unfinished than usual, as only the first movement was broadcast)

Then some arch chatter about how the next piece combined Brazilian folk music with baroque styles of composition. Ah, I thought, could this conceivably be Bachianas Brasilieras no.5? Oh yes, it could. (First movement only.)

Then (whilst I'm writing an obviously utterly pointless email to the programme asking why it is so boring) - Bach's Toccata & Fugue in D minor (the most overplayed piece of Bach in existence.)

At that point, I switched off.

[french frank]

As I'm not working today (bank holiday), I decided to try Essential Classics again

You won't be told, will you?

"Essential Classics, between 9am and noon, is dire: terrible, cliched little featurettes; mindless broadcasting of listeners’ emails and tweets; a predictable roster of music."

S. Moss, The Guardian.

I see they're playing Rhapsody in Blue just now (apparently the third time on R3 this month - all impeccably classical performances …).

[Stanfordian]

You won't be told, will you?

"Essential Classics, between 9am and noon, is dire: terrible, cliched little featurettes; mindless broadcasting of listeners’ emails and tweets; a predictable roster of music."

S. Moss, The Guardian.

I see they're playing Rhapsody in Blue just now (apparently the third time on R3 this month - all impeccably classical performances …).

"Playing Rhapsody in Blue". What all of it?

A strange Guardian article in a way as I'm not sure the author S. Moss actually likes classical music from his tone. I find it hard to believe that so many R4 listeners should switch to R3 which is an entirely different type of programme.

I recall some years ago when my son who had been delivering newspapers for some years saying that he had never ever delivered a copy of The Guardian. Incidentally I don't live in St. Mary Mead. Probably weighed down in my town by copies of the Daily Mail. We all know that readership of hard copy newspapers is on the decline but the name of the actual paper read is still a very region matter. I don't think for years that I've seen a young person buying a daily newspaper, the same goes for them purchasing CDs or CD players or visiting M&S etc.

[BBMmk2]

"Playing Rhapsody in Blue". What all of it?

Makes me cringe every time!