Classical Collection -now just an extension of Breakfast

[barber olly]

CC is not an extension of breakfast but it lcks excitement and carefully sought out recordings. If CDM returned tomorrow I'd be delighted. If it ran from 9 to 12 I'd be even more delighted. If Rob and Jon were the presenters I'd perceive that R3 was not going to to be CFM2 just yet. I'd settle for Rob and Jolly Jim exchanging roles in the R3 roster.
However, as I look through my window I see no pigs a flying. What horizons I see are bland and dumbed down. Has Rob now done is job in establishing Breakfast, it is time that the R3 policy makers rewarded him and us wrinkly listeners with a regular menu of CDM gems.

[DracoM]

< CC is a pretty bland programme >

Up thread quote.

I very much fear that RW and his team will be hugging themselves with delight to hear that. They will see it as praise and vindication

It is precisely that kind of seamless, purring, comforting, untroubling mediocrity that the current company putting it together seem to have been given as a brief. Much the same is happening to the afternoon sequence. It is of course a betrayal of the remit, but if you re-write the remit to suit yourself then there is nowhere to go.

How on earth the R3 management see CC as an education leading people on to explore and develop tastes and knowledge beats me. It is now a programme that merely seeks to calm and quell. Stirring the curiosity, even [ shock horro! ] challenging and pushing its audience to explore or experience new modes of being and listening is so far beyond its vision that it raises a smile even to contemplate. And watch for CDR going the same way.

But it seems inescapable to me that the very people who increasingly control/plan both R3 policy and even programmes are decreasingly musically educated, have sacrificed daring for conformity to some panglossian vision of what they are pumping out. Why there has not been a leakage, drifting away, revolt of the 'real' R3 staff I simply do not know.

They seem to have been suckered into accepting the pabulum as a necessary part of feeling the decks ever more seriouisly tilting uinder them.

[maestro267]

I'm under the impression that RW wants to make R3 more 'new-listener-friendly' to compete with CFM, and that the 'Live concert every night' strategy (great as that is) is a ploy to 'appease' the type of R3 listener who frequents this board, the hope being that we'll put up with the direction that daytime R3 is going in. The increasing number of non-classical Proms since RW took over is another sign (for me anyway) of his overall 'big scheme' for classical music on the BBC, which seems to be 'Attract new listeners, whatever the cost.'

[Suffolkcoastal]

That does seem to be RW's strategy, offering little carrot's to try appease the critics, but meanwhile gradually increasing the CFM style and content overall. I agree that Morning Collection now needs to be renamed Extended Breakfast becuase basically that is all it is. There are still some interesting works during the afternoons, but all to often the same old pieces are dragged out again. In Tune might as well be called the Late Breakfast show and even TTN over the last few months has seen an increase in the same old repetoire.

[Norfolk Born]

Why not have a single programme called 'All Day Breakfast'?

[Panjandrum]

I agree that Morning Collection now needs to be renamed Extended Breakfast becuase basically that is all it is.

Perhaps, "Morning Coffee with a Biccy" would be an appropriate re-branding?

[french frank]

Further to my Msg #6, I've just turned up another set of figures, sent by the BBC, for Q3, 2006 - a few months before CC collection replaced CDM, so:

CD Masters (BBC's figure, Q3 2006): 627,000 weekly average

Classical Collection (Trust, 2010/2011): 616,000 weekly average

[Panjandrum]

Further to my Msg #6, I've just turned up another set of figures, sent by the BBC, for Q3, 2006 - a few months before CC collection replaced CDM, so:

CD Masters (BBC's figure, Q3 2006): 627,000 weekly average

Classical Collection (Trust, 2010/2011): 616,000 weekly average

I don't think that's a surprise FF. For every new listener that CC has garnered, there will be as many (possibly more) who have switched off.

[maestro267]

Classical Collection should be renamed 'Brunch', followed by the Lunchtime Concert, followed by Afternoon Tea (on 3)

[Paul Sherratt]

>>followed by Afternoon Tea (on 3)
Indeed, indeed.
The BBC should fight tooth and nail to claw back those lost listeners

http://harrowroadblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/tea2010.jpg

[rauschwerk]

I don't think that's a surprise FF. For every new listener that CC has garnered, there will be as many (possibly more) who have switched off.

It does surprise me. I also find it dispiriting. The trouble is that in big organisations nowadays, nobody can ever admit making a mistake, still less suggest undoing a bad decision.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I have noticed that there is some improvement next week in the 'Breakfast with Coffee and a Biccy' that is apart from Piazzolla (which sends me diving for the off switch) and the inevitable Slavonic Dance, if Slavonic Dances continue being brodcast at their current rate they'll average about one every 36 or so hours by the years' end!

[french frank]

I can see there is a case (from a certain point of view) for considering that a 24-hour station dedicated to what is seen as a 'small minority' can be given more 'public value' if some of the station welcomes a wider range of listeners. This doesn't necessarily mean that more people will listen if one set of listeners stops listening, but it can still be claimed that the audience is broader, more representative (for what that's worth).

The worrying thing is the amount of the schedule which is being tweaked towards that wider audience - five hours in the morning of CDs, five in the afternoon of Ao3 and In Tune. That's ten hours, plus the loss of another hour with CotW being repeated the same day. We've now seen a shift in the classical music output, during the most popular times of day, towards this supposed 'wider audience'. The serious classical listener is being marginalised.

It wouldn't be surprising if the listeners with the strongest interest in classical music drifted away and the emailing, texting audience wanting an undemanding 'soundtrack' to their lives gradually increased. So much for Radio 3 being a 'special' station: it becomes just another radio station offering another selection of nice music.

[Suffolkcoastal]

I agree with you FF, listeners with an enquiring ear, seem to be being increasingly marginalised by the current regime, even as I pointed out earlier, TTN the last refuge for the enquiring ear is now being invaded by 'popular' repetoire on an increasing basis. While I applaud the return of genuinely 'live' concerts to the R3 schedule I am concerned that this will just result in a continuation of the same old repetoire. Of course R3 has little control over what unimaginative concert programmers devise, but hopefully they might search out some more interesting concerts for live broadcast.

[mercia]

40 minutes of Classical Collection this morning being devoted to Reger's Variations and Fugue on a theme of J A Hiller opus 100. Nice, undemanding 'soundtrack' music? I've no idea, but I'm going to give it the benefit of the doubt by listening to it.