So what's wrong with Radio 3 Breakfast?

[Domeyhead]

Listening to Breakfast this morning just after 7am I very much enjoyed the two songs by Clara Schumann; not to everyone's taste of course but it shows that even when several of us remain critical of the programme, its format and content, there still remains within the programme a large body of music that we continue to enjoy (not the same parts in every case I hope!).
It occurs to me that with The Radio 3 Controller and editor claiming that their only desire is to make the programme more accessible, less "elitist", more democratic and so on, it would not be difficult to introduce feedback on individual pieces played on the programme to ascertain what listeners actually enjoy most. The playlist is produced on the breakfast website daily so it would not be too difficult to allow listeners to indicate whether or not they enjoyed a piece or feature via a tickbox against each piece. Simple IP controls mean it is relatively easy to prevent large scale voting fraud! :-) . This method also allows listeners time to reflect on their enjoyment or otherwise before voting unlike the realtime froth of tweets.
This might be the best way to determine for certain whether the programmes have become too populist. If listeners really are happy to "Like" familiar overtures, fanfares and arias in preference to rarer pieces or composers this would surely indicate it once and for all.
Now that the majority of people are computer literate I would be far more inclined to accept the findings of a large representative body of listeners via the Radio 3 programme hompepage than the possibility that "those who tweet" who are dictating playlist policy (which I suspect is what is happening).

[Mary Chambers]

I thought I really must be on the wrong programme when I switched on this morning around 7-30-ish and got Supercallifragilistic-etc. from Mary Poppins - but no, they really were playing it. All very well in its place, but........

[Don Petter]

Domey #107

It sounds like a good idea, but possibly not as useful as at first thought.

I suspect that the proportion of R3 listeners who ever bother to go to the website and therefore might vote (which is not the same as the proportion who have access to a computer) is small compared with the total listenership. So it might well be quite unrepresentative of the mood of the populace?

[doversoul1]

Domeyhead

to ascertain what listeners actually enjoy most

I have a feeling that this is a notion that they have long forsaken (alas).

[ed.] if by ‘enjoy’ you mean ‘would like to hear’.

[french frank]

Domey #107

It sounds like a good idea, but possibly not as useful as at first thought.

I suspect that the proportion of R3 listeners who ever bother to go to the website and therefore might vote (which is not the same as the proportion who have access to a computer) is small compared with the total listenership. So it might well be quite unrepresentative of the mood of the populace?

And a general poll with high participation is the way to Lowest Common Denominator. The most popular pieces will be just that, especially since all the marketing has been aimed at attracting the 'lighter' listener.

What Breakfast needs (in my 'amateur' view ) is knowledgeable producers with a rather different programme brief.

[cloughie]

I thought I really must be on the wrong programme when I switched on this morning around 7-30-ish and got Supercallifragilistic-etc. from Mary Poppins - but no, they really were playing it. All very well in its place, but........

I don't know what the context was, but tunnel vision and gimmicky presentation seem to take precedence over 'thinking
outside the box' or even outside London. Where was mention of Cornwall and St Piran's Day on Monday - no Cornish Dances on the playlist?
Perhaps their excuse was that Petroc was not around to remind them - doubt he'd clock it anyway!

[Bax-of-Delights]

I very rarely tune into R3 before 12 noon these days but on occasion press the pre-set button just to see if there is anything that I hear that is unusual. Today I got:
Vivaldi: Four Seasons
Grieg's Anitra's Dance from Peer Gynt
Some bizarre waffling about something Tom Service is doing
Puccini: Si. Mi chiamano Mimì
Purcell: Dido's Lament.

I just checked the Essential Classics playlist and good god almighty there was the Rossini Cat Duet.

What a pity I missed it all. :)

[Panjandrum]

It occurs to me that with The Radio 3 Controller and editor claiming that their only desire is to make the programme more accessible, less "elitist", more democratic and so on, it would not be ...difficult to allow listeners to indicate whether or not they enjoyed a piece or feature via a tickbox against each piece. Simple IP controls mean it is relatively easy to prevent large scale voting fraud! :-) . This method also allows listeners time to reflect on their enjoyment or otherwise before voting unlike the realtime froth of tweets.

I sympathise with your viewpoint, Domeyhead. Unfortunately, I believe that Wright and his cronies are too savvy to let the populace have their say unfettered by attempts to rig the result to come out in the way they would wish. As you say, Twitter and Facebook have recently been taken over by the whole media circus, many of whom owe much of their bread and butter to Radio 3. It doesn't take too much of a leap of imagination to see that they would all be mobilised (as well as their family and friends) to vote in favour of the playlist. Moreover, because such a large chunk of the traditional audience has given up on R3, it would be the current listenership who, unless they are all masochists of the first order, would know of the poll, and would vote accordingly. You only have to read some of the banal tweets like "loved hearing the Queen of Sheba this morning; made me think of my wedding" to know how this would turn out. A PR disaster for FoR3 Im afraid!

[Domeyhead]

I sympathise with your viewpoint, Domeyhead. Unfortunately, I believe that Wright and his cronies are too savvy to let the populace have their say unfettered by attempts to rig the result to come out in the way they would wish. As you say, Twitter and Facebook have recently been taken over by the whole media circus, many of whom owe much of their bread and butter to Radio 3. It doesn't take too much of a leap of imagination to see that they would all be mobilised (as well as their family and friends) to vote in favour of the playlist. Moreover, because such a large chunk of the traditional audience has given up on R3, it would be the current listenership who, unless they are all masochists of the first order, would know of the poll, and would vote accordingly. You only have to read some of the banal tweets like "loved hearing the Queen of Sheba this morning; made me think of my wedding" to know how this would turn out. A PR disaster for FoR3 Im afraid!

Ah you are probably right Panjandrum, and you too French Frank. I was experiencing a caffeine rush and became overexcited and imbued with false hope. Normal service resumed! <wistful sigh.....>

[JFLL]

I wonder whether, after they've run through all the 'celebrities' (= nonentities or has-beens) who just love the Queen of Sheba, they might have to scrape the barrel with people who really know something about music. I see that in the Schubert Week they're going to have Roger Scruton (a composer and author of excellent books on the aesthetics of music, as well as being one of the left's favourite bogeymen) and John Tusa. Hope that's a sign of things improving.

[Panjandrum]

John Tusa.

You might have thought he would have been first on the list. :sigh:

[Osborn]

Moreover, because such a large chunk of the traditional audience has given up on R3...

Where on earth is your evidence for that statement?
And do you mean given up on Breakfast or given up on everything R3 transmits?

[Bax-of-Delights]

Where on earth is your evidence for that statement?
And do you mean given up on Breakfast or given up on everything R3 transmits?

Well, speaking personally...
I was a permanent listener to R3, switching on at 7.30 and leaving it on throughout the day or if travelling picking up the programmes on the car radio. Gradually over the last 2 years I have become so bored by the incessant repeats and unnatural chuminess of the presenters that I found that tuning away from 91.3 was not the end of the world as I thought it might have been. R4 has some very interesting programmes - there was one on the Kinder Scout trespass last week which was fascinating - and bit by bit I have got out of the habit of tuning to R3. And, as market researchers will tell you, once a listener/viewer gets out of the habit and finds the programme(s) uninteresting then it is all downhill from thereon. I had gone back to R3 for 12 noon onwards but then Katie Dereham steps in with her vocal acrobatics on non-British names and her ever-gushing "wonderfuls" that I began to feel that none of this is aimed at me any more.

So, the choice is now silence (which is quite nice to be honest) or the CD collection to which I add on a weekly basis - spurred on by other sources (many from these boards).

R3 has virtually nothing to say to me now.

[Frances_iom]

maybe Domey's like button would be useful - BoD sums up my attitude - pre noon literally on for 5 mins whilst the alarm goes (and I too caught Mary poppins this morning) then off til noon - then post lunchtime concert nearly always gets switched off within a short time if KD is in charge (is Penny Gore the only one left with ideal R3 presentation skills)

[cloughie]

maybe Domey's like button would be useful - BoD sums up my attitude - pre noon literally on for 5 mins whilst the alarm goes (and I too caught Mary poppins this morning) then off til noon - then post lunchtime concert nearly always gets switched off within a short time if KD is in charge (is Penny Gore the only one left with ideal R3 presentation skills)

I agree what was said of Penny, but I will continue to listed to R3 if there are pieces I wish to listen to, regardless of the presenter, but this usually means nothing much before 9am, because of the BC scenario - the Classical charts snippets are very much to be missed! EC other than guess spots and guest spots has a lot of good music, and not all of it is for the nth time this month! Others may wish to throw out the baby with the bathwater - their choice!