....because there's not a moment goes by without some kind of interruption by this guy, who's becoming as irritating as the blessed Rob Cowan! For heaven's sake, sometimes I just feel like shouting STFU!!
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As many, many of us have been saying for months.
The RR programme has been belittled and demeaned by ill-judged editorial decisions.
The format as currently operative is disenfranchising opinion and nuance.
This was once a not-to-be-missed cornerstone of R3's schedule. No more.
Shame, isn;t it? -
I'm at one , 100% with Paulie55 and DracoM
First time I've listened to BaL for a good while, for the same reasons. It doesn't improve with age - it's old vinegar.Comment
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I've read the remarks about the change of format with BaL and can only agree that it's, imho, inferior to what we had before. (I have literally hundreds of episodes of CD/Record Review from 1998 until 2012 on minidisc and occasionally pull them out if there's a work I'm interested in).
However, I think it's very unfair to blame Andrew for this format and his contribution to it. There are many things about MY employment I don't agree with and I do protest up to a point. The reply is ALWAYS 'well, we appreciate your opinion but this is the way it's going to be and if you feel that strongly about it the door is the big wooden thing behind you!'
I suspect Andrew is in the same position. I can only imagine the layers of editors who are passing down edicts that have to be obeyed. What I'm saying is, give the guy a break!Comment
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Very little has been said against "the guy" (perhaps an unfortunate choice of description, given that Nov 5th is just over a fortnight away) beyond that he is "becoming as irritating" as other R3 presenters past & present, who are allowed no such breakages, pasto.Originally posted by pastoralguy View Post
As someone who has regarded for some time Record Review and its immediate predecessor as The Andrew McGregor Show, it matters not a jot to me whether he is compelled to take part in the deterioration of the programme or is the instigator of the changes - having possession of compromising photos of the Director General in a position which might most charitably be termed "compromising". The point, for me, is that the programme has become insufferable, and I suffer it no more - the move to a presenter-focussed concept of the programme has utterly ruined it for me. It would be the same no matter who the presenter - the difference being that we'd just have to substitute the name of another, possibly less break-worthy, individual.
[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]Comment
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Well, to defend Mr McGregor, we owed him thanks this morning for interjecting at least something to give us the odd clue as to the possible plot of La traviata, which the celebrity BaL presenter didn't see fit to do! At least AMcG was aware of the format's duty to people who didn't know the work in question.Comment
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Who won ?I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
I am not a number, I am a free man.Comment
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I'm pretty sure that Mr C doesn't interrupt as much / as often as Mr M.Originally posted by Paulie55 View PostComment
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It is thought that The Powers That Be at the BBC read posts on this Forum. It is a moot point as to whether they react (a) in favour of, or (b) against our general views. I detect no movement on the McGregor/twofer point, but I did detect...I think.... un poco meno mosso in Tom Service's presentation of Music Matters today.Comment
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What you must remember is that the BBC are never wrong - they may tweak things slightly but they'll never own up!Originally posted by ardcarp View PostComment
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Oh yes, yes, YES. So true. And simply do not have - or seem to be unwilling to implement - the wherewithal to dig themselves out of 'ditches' [see what I did there?] of entirely their own making.Originally posted by cloughie View Post
Editorially, RR needs IMO to do a very serious re-think of where they are taking the programme. The more 'informal' they make it, ironically, the less informative it becomes. Sad, but...
AMcG is a GOOD broadcaster, yes, BUT is not having his talents put to good use in the format they have chosen. Now whether this is his own idea of self-promotion or the Editorial team's we may never know, but, whatever, the result is fuzz, fog and exasperation for many.Comment
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I have have posted my strong misgivings about the new-fangled twofer BaL format but am not inclined to jump up and down in support of such a sarcastic, overstated comment as the above, containing as it does a condemnation so sweeping and generalised that for me it is rendered invalid as argument. Exclamation marks don't necessarily help to convey a point more cogently. I also mistrust and find offputting the unhelpful implied assertion that "people who disagree with me are wrong". I remember Record Review over 50 years back to John Lade and co and it continues to me my favoured Saturday morning listening. The coverage nowadays might be more informal at times but is much fuller than in the John Lade days.Originally posted by cloughie View PostComment
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I respect your view - its just that its not mine, although of course I think respect for individuals is necessary and needs to be maintained. Looking at what I have written below, I trust and hope you do not take the strength of my feeling as directed at you.
For me, criticism is not of the presenter, the producer nor controller R3. I might be wrong, but I think the controller is subject to the demands of a Controller for "Music" of all the BBC. And if at the meetings where R3 controller is one amongst many, the demands are for presenter focussed presentation - along the lines we are seeing - and for accessibility (according to their concept) he probably has limited room for manoeuvre and cannnot resist the direction of travel.
And for a controller of all music on the BBC, Radio 3 is a minor backwater and just has to fit in with the whole corporate development. The R3 budget -including the Proms and orchestras - must appear out of all proportion when mass appeal is anywhere but the music for which R3 was created. However any corporate man would know Proms and Orchestras are BBC main board policy commitments (until such a times as they aren't) - so at the most to be tweaked perhaps but mostly left alone.
So - the criticism is of the corporate bureaucracy of the BBC and its outcomes, and in particular its dismissal of those aged over, say 50, as the audience of the past, on their way out and to have no influence.
But I am intrigued - apart from truly mass protest issues, can you point to instances where controllers of Radio stations have listened to the representations from their audience. When Radio 4's "feedback" programme manages to get responsible executives into the studio, they always seem to regard it as an opportunity to explain to us numpties why they are right and we are wrong....
There are a fair number of folk out there who hate the BBC and can't wait for it to lose the licence fee to subscription, and this sort of corporate arrogance only adds to that number. Although I happily pay the licence fee, and value the still many good things it provides, the degeneration of Record Review is a cause of great regret and should not go unchallenged. I grieve for the previous quality of BAL - if I want short, shallow, insufficiently informed /authoritative pointers to this content I can find it in the pages of the BBC music magazine (although I accept it has more worthy content as well) and similar or other sources of information. I envy Pulcinella (IIRC Pulcinella) his extensive BAL archive on minidisc.Comment
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Not guilty! But I remember reading the post from whoever it was!Originally posted by Cockney Sparrow View Post
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