Classic FM attacks Radio 3!

[amateur51]

Quite so. From long experience of dealing with issues like this and the press the best policy is to avoid it uness you know the journalist personally and even then his/her editor can get in the way. Press releases can be helpful to say what you want in a specific instance but even then words can be selected to suit the journo/editor. As FF says, a minefield, keep out of it.

Our position is a "moral" one based on our general feeling that R3 has lost its intellectual grip in an attempt to be more "accessible"; it's an opinion and one that probably commands minority support among listeners. Appealing from that stance to a regime that is legalistic/formalistic in its constitution admits no ready solution, it can simply disagree and do what it wants with the support of the Trust. It also reeks of intellectual elitism. Elitism in itself is not a bad thing and takes many forms, some more acceptable than others, ask Sir Alex Ferguson or any PL football fan - would they want the "best" players in their team? of course they would. That's elitism. Somehow, when we edge away from the demotic towards anything intellectual the word attracts censure.

As we have discussed several times in the past, to escalate any campaign means a radical change in the way For3 is constituted. We are few in number, not a fully coherent group, we have no formal establishment or "cabinet", no funds, no lobbying policy except insofar that FF has taken the lead on expressing views to the BBC. That is no one's fault, and I mean no disrespect to or criticism of anyone, it is just a reflection of the facts.

As we are now influence is limited. Any "more aggressive" group will need clear and achieveable war aims which have a broad base of support and I'd suggest a war chest to go with it. Serious lobbying costs time and money as does influence. Think of it as a business proposition - what is your product and who will buy it? More to the point, who are your investors and why would they back you for what return??

I, for one, think that in the circumstances FF has done a marvellous job in maintaining pressure on the BBC and the momentum and belief in what FoR3 stands for. If anyone thinks they can do, or could have done, better let them try.

[Russ]

Commercial stations bashing the BBC is not new - 5live suffered criticism (from its listeners) that it was dumbing down its news output (too much celebs and trivia), and Talksport readily joined in the chorus of disapproval: Talksport's agenda however is not an altruistic one - it wants 5live to spend more on serious news because 5live would then have less to spend on footie coverage, and guess which station would be only too happy to snap that up and thereby increase its reach and revenue, surprise surprise, Talksport. It's a good example of a BBC station under a combination of threat from its audence and commercial pressure.

I'm still trying to get my head around the Trust's convolutions flowing from the notion of 'broadening the appeal' of R3, but even if we accept the substance of Global Radio's charge ("R3 is copying CFM") as true, I'm not sure we can draw any inferences in terms of numbers of listeners flowing from one to the other. CFM has lost 10% of its once 6m audience over the last 18 months, whereas R3's 2m audience has remained reasonably static over the same period. I accept the general thrust of Roger Wright's assertion that R3 and CFM are chalk and cheese when taking the outputs of the stations as a whole, but in respect of what is perceived (if only by the mainstream press) as a prime battleground of the breakfast period, both R3 and CFM lost approx 60k breakfast listeners in Q3, so maybe classical fans are saying a plague on both houses to this particular area of 'competition'?

Russ

[Keith Braidwood]

On the subject of Facebook and Twitter: this has come up and been vaguely discussed with people who have had some experience - good and bad - with the social media. In the end I was rather put off the idea.

What is needed is someone/people who are adept at using them who will undertake to run the accounts, but there do need to be checks and balances.

My abiding fault is that I rarely have anything worth saying that can be encompassed in 140 characters ...

While it is true that there are good and bad experiences with social media (I have had four Facebook accounts hacked into so refuse to set up another) it can prove useful.

Twitter is certainly more useful than Facebook. All that is required is an email address and a password, and you choose your own username (I've checked and @friendsofradio3 is available). While you cannot initially stop someone from 'following' you, a block can certainly be put on their account to prevent any further communications (the block can be removed at any time). Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3) currently has 11,928 followers so the opportunity is there. If FoR3 has an email address (and a suitable password) I'm happy to set up the account. If certain others were also given the password it would be easy to monitor if one or more were, say, on holiday.

Rather than use it simply to type 140 characters it could be used to link to stories and discussions on the FoR3 site and forum along with highlighting any newsworthy items. Radio3 has several related Twitter accounts such as In Tune, Music Matters etc, and several presenters have their own accounts.

If FoR3 tweeted (silly name, but that's what it's called) that it now has a Twitter account and Radio 3 re-tweeted the message nearly 12,000 people would know about the group, and if some of these people also re-tweeted it would grow.

It would clearly have to be managed in accordance with the aims of the group but there is no reason why that would not be the case.

[french frank]

Thanks for the information, Keith. I'll think about this. At least when people say they haven't heard of us we can say: OH? DO YOU NOT HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT?

If FoR3 tweeted (silly name, but that's what it's called) that it now has a Twitter account and Radio 3 re-tweeted the message nearly 12,000 people would know about the group, and if some of these people also re-tweeted it would grow.

Now that would be interesting ...

We asked for a link to the forum on the R3 website (given we set it up when they axed the BBC boards) but were told, sadly, no, this was not possible. Existing precedents would suggest this wasn't completely true ...

[Russ]

As an occasional twitterer (@russbeeby, with a disastrously small following), I've been tempted to link to discussions here occasionally, and I think Keith is right to suggest linkages to the FoR3 site or the forum should be the primary mode for any official 'FoR3' tweeter. When it comes to BBC stations retweeting however, my experience is that they will retweet only material that is glowingly enthusiastic and containing a link or reference to one of their programmes. I think the likelihood of an official Radio 3 tweeter retweeting a non-BBC url is low, particularly if it routes to contentious or intellectual content relating to content of their station. BBC tweeters also tend to focus on their own passions. It's probably a better strategy to get some media commentator following, because that's where the FoR3 message is probably best directed.

I won't touch Facebook, for the same reasons as Keith.

Russ

[french frank]

Russ

The battle between the BBC and the commercials is pretty much ongoing, I agree. But I would say that the overlap between R3 and CFM doesn't need to be very great. RadioCentre would like R3 to push its 'distinctive' non-classical programming during the daytime because that gives CFM a clear run during the times of higher listening. R3 responds by pushing it up into the late night spots and giving the daytime almost exclusively to classical music. Both schedule programmes in ways designed to keep people listening for as long as possible and - idealistic I may be but, that doesn't seem to me what an arts station should be about.

Listening figures are ambiguous. However, I would suggest that if R3 moves towards 'accessibility', logically you would expect the CFM listener to be attracted to R3 and the R3 listener to give up (certainly not to move to CFM). In that case there would be no surprise if R3's reach remained stable: gain one, lose one.

Not being a CFM listener, I'm not sure what independent changes have happened there. But since the glory days of its 6.7m reach, it's lost Roger Lewis and I don't think Simon Bates was received very warmly when Henry Kelly was dropped.

[Keith Braidwood]

I've only just rejoined Twitter (@keith_braidwood) in the last week or so as, via my hacked Facebook account, Twitter was also compromised (in hindsight it was a bit foolish of me to link the two). I'm being very careful now as to who I follow.

If, on Twitter, R3 are unable or unwilling to tweet a link to FoR3 what I would do is take a look at who follows R3 and start following some of them. It's surprising how many people automatically follow those who have followed them. I'd also follow many of the artists and ensembles etc that feature on R3 and, where applicable, reply to their tweets (for example, if someone dealing with the FoR3 account saw, say, The Sixteen in concert at a particular venue, and The Sixteen tweeted that they would be returning during their next Choral Pilgrimage, FoR3 could reply and say how much they enjoyed the last concert. If The Sixteen re-tweeted, the FoR3 name would hit, as of today, 6,111 people). People may not follow but it has the chance to raise awareness of the group.

The point of Twitter here is to get the group's message out there but more importantly to have it discussed. It's simply a tool to help that happen. If I doesn't work the account can be closed easily with a couple of clicks.

[french frank]

Keith - I've PM'd you.

[Russ]

For info, here is the list of R3 staff tweeters.

Russ

[Catherine Bott]

None of the presenters is actually a Staff Tweeter.....

[Paul Sherratt]

What a curious list !

[Russ]

None of the presenters is actually a Staff Tweeter.....

Quite right, my mistake: I meant 'staff who happen to tweet in a personal capacity'.

The official R3 tweeter is possibly a shared pool.

Russ

[cloughie]

Quite right, my mistake: I meant 'staff who happen to tweet in a personal capacity'.

The official R3 tweeter is possibly a shared pool.

Russ

I won't ask of what!

[VodkaDilc]

Though I know nothing about tweeting, I notice that the most respected people on the list have the least support. Are there conclusions to be drawn?

[Catherine Bott]

No, what I meant is that the presenters don't have the status of staff - as far as I know we're (almost) all on freelance contracts of various kinds, which is very different. Sorry to be permanently in Pedants' Corner....