Yet another gaffe on Breakfast - can R3 get any worse???

[Norfolk Born]

I can't abide misplaced apostrophe's.

My deer old thing - pleas dont worry about it. Wier nun of us purrfect. It's just that we knead to be careful when commenting on other's people slips-up, espeshly wear grammer and speling are concerned (dont you think?) (NB: I've just read this out to the lady wife, who assured me it sounded fine). I was listening to a report on the World Service of a visit to Nelson Mandela's former cell. The report began: 'Well, this is his former cell. It's sparse, to put it mildly'.

[Richard Tarleton]

If it's not one thing it's another. This a.m. on Classical Collection there was an aria (I forget who by ) sung by Editor Grubberover.

[french frank]

sung by Editor Grubberover.

Left over from the Morgengrub we had the other morning for Breakfast? In fairness, that was the playlist not an erudite presenter

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

ff, I think the BBC should employ you to sort out these wretched playlists. You seem to have your finger on the button...

[french frank]

ff, I think the BBC should employ you to sort out these wretched playlists. You seem to have your finger on the button...

Alps, I wouldn't even need employing. If they can happily quote without checking from the excellent but ultimately unreliable Wikipedia at the drop of a hat, why wouldn't they rely on a supervised group of well-informed R3 listeners to wiki their pages?

[hmvman]

The problem for me was; why did it need listeners to contact R3 to correct it? Are the presenters actually listening to or looking at what they are playing?

A friend of mine has a tape taken off air of a R3 broadcast many years ago. The record is clearly playing at the wrong speed (45rpm instead of 33.33rpm) but the whole piece is played through. At the end an embarrassed-sounding Patricia Hughes apologises for the mistake but says that they were alerted to the error by listeners ringing in to point it out. So presenters/producers not listening to the output is nothing new!

Regarding CFM, I can rarely manage to listen for more than 10 minutes these days before reaching for the off button but two gems from the past stick in the memory:

1. "Bad news for Beethoven as his 5th symphony slips to number 9 in our Hall of Fame."

2. "How can I describe Don Giovanni? Dallas - with spaghetti."

Radio3 has a way to go....

[Mark Sealey]

Criticism of presenters is not new, of course: I well remember (in the 1970s?) PH coming in for severe criticism from an outraged listener because - as she was introducing a piece which included a mouse (??) - she used a high, squeaky voice at that point. Seen as undignified and gratuitous.

…At the end an embarrassed-sounding Patricia Hughes apologises for the mistake…

If the example we're discussing in this thread were one or two of only a dozen or so shortcomings of R3, we'd probably not deem it worthy of a mention at all.

But they're symptomatic of a culture of mediocrity where accuracy, (musical) insight and preparedness matter less than wrapping, immediacy, celebrity and interactivity etc.

[Suffolkcoastal]

But they're symptomatic of a culture of mediocrity where accuracy, (musical) insight and preparedness matter less than wrapping, immediacy, celebrity and interactivity etc.

I think this is very true, society now wants everything immediately at the press of a button, insight, accuracy amd knowledge seems to be being frowned upon and the cult of the cheap celebrity is king. In that respect I suppose what is happening to Radio 3 is symptomatic of culture generally. I now more often than not ignore the many gaffes on R3 (this one though was just too bad to let go!) dear Rafferty seems to make one almost everytime I switch on and as for the website and playlists well .....

[Eudaimonia]

But they're symptomatic of a culture of mediocrity where accuracy, (musical) insight and preparedness matter less than wrapping, immediacy, celebrity and interactivity etc.

I think this is very true, society now wants everything immediately at the press of a button, insight, accuracy amd knowledge seems to be being frowned upon and the cult of the cheap celebrity is king. In that respect I suppose what is happening to Radio 3 is symptomatic of culture generally. I now more often than not ignore the many gaffes on R3 (this one though was just too bad to let go!) dear Rafferty seems to make one almost everytime I switch on and as for the website and playlists well .....

Maybe so, but what are we going to ACTUALLY DO to help improve things instead of sitting around waggling our fingers at everyone for not being up to par?

I don't suppose they'd have much use for volunteers around R3, but perhaps focusing your energies on helping educate new listeners one person at a time would be satisfying and productive. There are a thousand ways to help: for example, I used to volunteer at the LA County Music Center Education Division, and was a member of the Los Angeles Opera Speakers Bureau. These groups made a significant contribution toward fostering a love of great music...if you really care about making things better, why not get active in your community? What if you rang up your local school and offered to teach an after-school music appreciation class to talented high schoolers, or organised a chamber music group for them? I daresay some of you would be naturals, and could help broaden the musical horizons of a whole lot of people who would like to learn if only someone offered them a hand.

Oh well, something to think about.

[french frank]

I would want to be a little defensive of presenters personally (them personally, not me personally), on the whole, because producing a programme is a team job and where you have less knowledgeable, less experienced presenters, the producer ought always to be alert (in the past I've certainly heard a dodgy pronunciation quietly corrected in the back announcement). If the producer doesn't have time, for example, on a programme like Breakfast, then only experienced presenters should be used. This isn't Radio 1 where youthful DJs only have to sound ultra confident and enthusiastic, look interesting/crazy/a lot younger than they are (oh, yes, this is radio, after all) and become adept at 'banter'.

In the end the producer carries the can for the programme, the controller carries the can for appointing an under tried presenter. They're the ones who bear the responsibility, though the presenter gets the public flac. To say that presenters shouldn't be picked on and criticised is plain silly. They have to do a job which satisfies their listeners. If listeners constantly nag, so be it. It's a tough old job, pleasing the public, and you have to learn from your critics. If the message in return seems to be, 'You're too elitist and you know too much; we don't want listeners like you', hmmm, just don't expect listeners to subside into silence.

But concentrate on the mistakes and not the person. I think SMP is probably doing too much atm, switching from Breakfast into what sounds so ghastly (the 3-hour nightly Play Mozart for Me , nine evenings out of ten) I can't even bear to listen to see how she makes out. I just wish her the very, very best of luck with it . Her personally, I mean. The description of the programme is pure Forces Favourites from the 1940s.

[aeolium]

The description of the programme is pure Forces Favourites from the 1940s.

I thought it was a reference to the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty for Me, in which an obsessive fan of a late-night radio requests show becomes increasingly unhinged and even homicidal, which would be slightly ironic given the reaction PMfM has received.

[french frank]

I thought it was a reference to the Clint Eastwood film Play Misty for Me, in which an obsessive fan of a late-night radio requests show becomes increasingly unhinged and even homicidal, which would be slightly ironic given the reaction PMfM has received.

Yes, v. funny, and better than 'Desperately Seeking Mozart'. But I meant the description sounded ghastly: 'Sara Mohr-Pietsch is the late night Mozart DJ with the discs. Write to her with your Mozart requests and dedications. '

[Paul Sherratt]

Help !
I keep reading this thread as :

' Yet another giraffe on Breakfast '

Can it get any worse ?

[Eudaimonia]

To say that presenters shouldn't be picked on and criticised is plain silly. They have to do a job which satisfies their listeners. If listeners constantly nag, so be it. It's a tough old job, pleasing the public, and you have to learn from your critics. If the message in return seems to be, 'You're too elitist and you know too much; we don't want listeners like you', hmmm, just don't expect listeners to subside into silence.

Look, I never said presenters shouldn't be criticised. (In fact, I'm *so* critical I actually feel guilty about it.) But there's a huge difference between constantly nagging and constructive criticism, and one would think that figuring out the difference between what's genuinely helpful and what's counterproductive ought to be a real priority for any public advocacy group. If the subtext of the message you get in return always seems to be "Oh God, not those bleeping crotchety old nutters again--they don't think we can do anything right, so stuff em", well...are you familiar with the internet meme "You're doing it wrong"? You're doing it wrong.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, v. funny, and better than 'Desperately Seeking Mozart'. But I meant the description sounded ghastly: 'Sara Mohr-Pietsch is the late night Mozart DJ with the discs. Write to her with your Mozart requests and dedications. '

It's as though they assume the listening public is a collection of morons.