The Classic FM-isation of R3 is almost complete

[french frank]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
The budget adjustments for Radio 1 & 2 have no influence whatsoever on R3's interval fillers or Proms programming.

Not directly linked, but the fact that Radio 3 has had only an 8.9% increase over a period of 8 years suggests that they will have had to cut back, specifically, on programme content. I've only heard them admit that two Radio 3 items had been cut back because of money (3 counting the messageboards): Discovering Music and the concert interval talks.

And for all the talk of cuts, Radios 1 and 2 haven't done badly (nor has R4), so there have been tens of millions of extra money: it just hasn't come to Radio 3.

[french frank]

in my obscure way I was tentatively implying that the Dr Who & film music proms (whilst we may loathe them) are essential to make up for losses elsewhere.

I had what might well prove to be a far less popular solution: don't keep increasing the number of concerts/events. Less could well be more. I suppose it's not so much the 'Doctor Who Prom' concept that troubles: it's the possibility of it becoming a regular feature, which is a bit unimaginative. They had a Darwin Prom one year, but I suppose it didn't go down so well, so they went back to DW.

[RichardWagner]

Many a true word......

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/classical-music-renamed-film-music-2014011382538?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailymash+%28The+Daily+Mash.+It%27s+news+to+us.%29&utm_content=Netvibes

[DracoM]

.......painfully, painfully true.
But does RW get Daily Mash?

Sorrows and Horrors - maybe R3 apparatchiks wrote it themselves to pave the way stealthily and wittily for the REAL Autumn schedules. so maybe is isn't a joke at all!

[french frank]

I posted that, and and a related one - how come people took no notice>

[Anna]

I posted that, and and a related one - how come people took no notice>

Well, it's definitely not option 2.
Why do people not notice -probably because a) they don't care, or b) brainwashed, or c) cannot be asked to lift a finger to help R3 lift itself up from the slough of despond, or the mire it wallows in.
A nice turn of phrase, even if I may say so!

[Gordon]

Just taken delivery of a quarterly mag mainly to do with reissues of historic recorded material. In there is an article about Percy Pitt who was tasked with assembling an orchestra for the BBC - NO, not the Corporation, but the preceding Company which was emphatically not a PSB at that time. In 1923 The Musical Standard published an article that stated:

"We sometimes grumble at the BBC's artisic shortcomings, but when we remember how awful things might have been if the public had been played down to, given what it thought it wanted, we ought to praise God night and day that such a man as Percy Pitt was put at the helm at the beginning of the voyage". Later on it says:

"The BBC's musical policy under Pitt was to "keep on the upper side of public taste"". And this at a time when there was only 1 radio channel. Now it has a "dedicated" channel it has no excuse for pandering - does it?

Come back Percy your country needs you.

[french frank]

I've just reread CFM's submission to the CMSSC again. They are insisting that it is time the Trust did its duty and carried out a Public Value Test on the changes.

They reported that the Trust had responded originally by saying there was no need as it was 'business as usual': BBC management had been engaged in the 'accessible and welcoming' effort for some while - so there was 'no change'.

CFM have cleverly discovered a clause which covers this: small, gradual changes over a period of time can result cumulatively in significant change and a PVT may still be required.

Mmmm. Very alert.

[Gordon]

Well, would you Adam an' Eve it!! CFM watching Auntie's back when she's not looking.

[HARRIET HAVARD]

The writing was on the wall once programmes were put out to tender, and made by private companies. The mission of the station changed over night to one purely motivated by audiance numbers. Needless to say this infection has spread to programmes made "in house". What has happened as a consequence is that, whereas in the past presenters had a "day job" within the musical community, (which gave the station a broad musical perspective) now the presenters are merely broadcasters with very narrow knowledge of music. One gets the feeling that they would be equally at home as presenters on shopping channels, where they would no doubt have a far wider knowledge of the product they are selling than they do on Radio3.

[Wallace]

The writing was on the wall once programmes were put out to tender, and made by private companies. The mission of the station changed over night to one purely motivated by audiance numbers. Needless to say this infection has spread to programmes made "in house". What has happened as a consequence is that, whereas in the past presenters had a "day job" within the musical community, (which gave the station a broad musical perspective) now the presenters are merely broadcasters with very narrow knowledge of music. One gets the feeling that they would be equally at home as presenters on shopping channels, where they would no doubt have a far wider knowledge of the product they are selling than they do on Radio3.

Well put.
I have that feeling too. They could be presenting anything. All they want is to be on the radio - any radio anywhere and heard by anyone.

[french frank]

Well put.
I have that feeling too. They could be presenting anything. All they want is to be on the radio - any radio anywhere and heard by anyone.

Too general. Some of the best programmes on R3 have been Indies - including the Music Feature (now dropped), CD Masters, some of the drama productions. Breakfast is made by the BBC, and even Essential Classics was given its programme brief when it went out to tender. So if they hadn't offered what R3 was asking for, they wouldn't have got the commission.

[Roehre]

.... They could be presenting anything. All they want is to be on the radio - any radio anywhere and heard by anyone.

Just the audio version of auto-cuties, male and female.

[french frank]

Btw, my post #177 was replying to the point about indies v in-house productions, not presenters.

There's a certain glamour about a job in the media, especially with the BBC. One would like to know from the presenters what gives them the biggest 'kick' about their job: would they say it's what they get out of it ('I really love my job'), or what they feel they can - and do - give to their audiences?

[Lento]

Does anyone here listen much to R3 at night? In Radio Times the night schedule looks more like a straightforward playlist approach and, perhaps, a little less "trying to please everybody".