The Last Breakfast

[Guest]

In which SM-P shares some secrets of her stint of presenting Breakfast ...

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2013/nov/14/last-radio-3-breakfast-show-sara-mohr-pietsch

[Frances_iom]

In which SM-P shares some secrets of her stint of presenting Breakfast ...

no wonder I switched off a long time ago - warm suffocating rubbish

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

No substance whatever. It reads like a page from FaceBook, or a televised proms interval talk with "Special Guests".

[Frances_iom]

has she never had to work shifts in an industrial town - 6am to 2pm was quite standard and the factory certainly didn't provide a taxi! - I'm very surprised at it appearing in the Guardian as it reads more like a Radio Times page filler with no substance but maybe they were short of an entry for Pseuds corner.

[kernelbogey]

I think I'm correct in recalling that when Andrew McGregor hosted the early morning slot before Breakfast came along - what was it called? - he would ride into the BBC on his bicycle. And I think he hosted the show week in week out.

[teamsaint]

has she never had to work shifts in an industrial town - 6am to 2pm was quite standard and the factory certainly didn't provide a taxi! - I'm very surprised at it appearing in the Guardian as it reads more like a Radio Times page filler with no substance but maybe they were short of an entry for Pseuds corner.

The anti industrial cultural bias in this country is a real problem. (and is very visible in the desired destinations for sixth formers and undergraduates).
No wonder we can't make our own cars and trains any more.

But then of course, manufacturing (and its unionism) was a centre of opposition to he powers that be.

[Bax-of-Delights]

Hmmmm....apart from the fact that the tens of thousands of other early shift workers also have to get up at the same time and make their own way to their places of work as opposed to having a BBC car at their front door, I wonder why I feel strangely irritated by this piece? Perhaps its the "by 9.15 my day's job is done and I can walk smugly down Oxford Street against the flow of office workers" . Ah yes, that's it. Those early shift workers who began their tasks at 6.30a.m. will still be doing them until well into the afternoon.

[french frank]

I think I'm correct in recalling that when Andrew McGregor hosted the early morning slot before Breakfast came along - what was it called? - he would ride into the BBC on his bicycle. And I think he hosted the show week in week out.

It was called 'On Air' and preceded Morning on 3.

[Sir Velo]

I wonder why I feel strangely irritated by this piece? Perhaps its the "by 9.15 my day's job is done and I can walk smugly down Oxford Street against the flow of office workers"

So, what I fail to understand is then, when did she actually do the hours of research for each edition of the programme? Surely, she's not suggesting that she just turns up and ad libs for 2 hours?

[Bryn]

Hmmmm....apart from the fact that the tens of thousands of other early shift workers also have to get up at the same time and make their own way to their places of work as opposed to having a BBC car at their front door, I wonder why I feel strangely irritated by this piece? Perhaps its the "by 9.15 my day's job is done and I can walk smugly down Oxford Street against the flow of office workers" . Ah yes, that's it. Those early shift workers who began their tasks at 6.30a.m. will still be doing them until well into the afternoon.

Sorry, I simply do not believe that you are so ignorant as to think that a Radio 3' passenger's work lasts only the duration of the broadcast.

All I heard of SM-P's final stint on the dreaded breakfast 'show' was the excellent Imaginary Landscape V provided by SM-P's Hear and Now colleague, RW. That was only because the car radio had been left tuned to Radio 3 from the previous evening. Straight after the Cage it was over to the Today programme.

[Richard Tarleton]

I wonder why I feel strangely irritated by this piece?

It gives me the creeps. The faux-intimacy, hint of voyeuristic innuendo. "Breakfast the most intimate broadcasting....us at our most vulnerable " (does she mean sitting on the loo?).... Just reverse the sexes, change one word, and try to imagine Rob Cowan, or Petroc Trelawny, saying "You regularly take your nightie off when I'm in the room". I'm sure eyebrows would be raised.

She's on the radio, for goodness sakes.

[muzzer]

I was going to say I think you're all being a little po-faced but I have just the piece in the Grauniad......The breakfast show is a shop window for R3 however and it needs a presenter who enthuses. I will miss SM-P. But the show is never going to please everyone [hence this thread, yes] I can't stand the chart, or the vox pops, but what really irks me is having the headlines on the quarter hour. If one wanted the news then one would obv be on R4. And it limits the length of the pieces that can be played betwixt, of course. That more than anything. The format's the issue, not the presenters.

[vinteuil]

The format's the issue, not the presenters.

... I agree that the news every fifteen minutes is unwanted.

Yes, the format's part of the issue.

But it's also the presenters. I don't think they're doing what they're doing unwillingly : I really think they 'buy in' to the current populist agenda of R3, and are only too willing to talk the talk - to be personal, to be chatty, to be mini-celebs, to have their fifteen minutes (how appropriate!) of fame, to try to create a feeling of 'family', of 'community' among the listeners by the endless requests for tweets and chat.

Sadly, for me at least - it's too late: I'm too old and weary to think there's much point in doing battle with this trend. Fortunately I have reached an age where there is an extensive build-up of CDs on the shelves ; R3 loses a listener.

[kernelbogey]

I agree with most of Muzzer's post n13.

I remember when Sara M-P first broacdast from Scotland introducing concerts how much I liked her voice and broadcasting style. That held true when she moved to a more mainstream position - possibly on Breakfast, but I don't recall. But she has been subverted by the ghastly Breakfast culture imposed by managers and producers.

As for the 'intimacy' much vaunted in her article, I have always found her use of 'many of you out there...' etc the obverse of intimacy - which I believe is created by speaking as though there is only one listener. This is behind the success, IMV, of the doyens of R3 - Donald Macleod, Jonathan Swain, Catherine Bott, John Shea et al. It is as though they're broadcasting just for me. In fact, now I think more on this the 'many of you out there...' served to alienate me further from the twitterati and facebookends.

[Don Petter]

... but what really irks me is having the headlines on the quarter hour. If one wanted the news then one would be on R4. And it limits the length of the pieces that can be played betwixt, of course. That more than anything. The format's the issue, not the presenters.

We are but lone voices in the wilderness.

This was the answer to a listener's complaint when the news went from every hour to every half hour at the end of 2001:

"The programme team of Morning on 3 proposed recently to introduce two
extra short bulletins of headline news into its three hour programme
and this came into effect a couple of weeks ago. This was in response
to listeners' suggestions that they would welcome a quick news summary
as they often missed it on the hour and therefore had to switch
stations to catch the news. We are pleased to offer this service
following our listeners' suggestions and will monitor the response
from our audience to judge if it has met with the expected approval
and allowed our listeners to keep tuned to Morning on 3 as they wish."

And my observation in a news group at that time:

"If people can't go for half an hour at a time without needing the same
items repeated, perhaps their attention span is unsuited to R3. It
seems to be all part of the master plan to turn R3 into 'talk radio'.
Actual music time is becoming more and more precious - so much so that
even the superfluous announcements of 'That was the news and the
weather' have one screaming 'Get on with it!'"

Little did we know how far it could go downhill from there!