Roger Wright moves to Aldeburgh Music

[french frank]

The BBC Trust and Management based their decisions on the relative merits of the parties' cases.

How do you know that? Would the decisions always be the same, regardless of who the members of Trust and Executive were? Oh, to live with such certainties as 'Whatever is, is right.'

[jean]

'Whatever is, is right.'

Precisely.

[teamsaint]

For purely personal reasons that need not concern board members, I had a listen into 6 Music yesterday morning.

It was just like listening to R3, but with rock " classics" instead of classical warhorses.

Presenter led chat with "celebrity" guests, music of a dull, unadventurous, predictable nature, irritating and pointless.
Paul Sherratt suggests it is better at other times of day though.

It would have to be.

Very depressing.

[Honoured Guest]

It's like all BBC music stations in that weekday daytime programming is aimed at general listeners and the more specialist programmes are broadcast at other times.

[subcontrabass]

It's like all BBC music stations in that weekday daytime programming is aimed at general listeners and the more specialist programmes are broadcast at other times.

What is a "general listener" ?

[Honoured Guest]

What is a "general listener" ?

A non-specialist listener.

[Richard Barrett]

A non-specialist listener.

That doesn't really answer the question I think. What would a "specialist listener" be? a professional musician?

[Honoured Guest]

That doesn't really answer the question I think. What would a "specialist listener" be? a professional musician?

A person who has chosen to listen to a specialist programme.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So now we have intellectual apartheid.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How do you know that?

That's what I've been wondering ever since HG joined the forum. So much claimed inside knowledge...

[jean]

A person who has chosen to listen to a specialist programme.

And what's a specialist programme? One that attracts a specialist listener, of course.

I think this is what's called a circular argument.

Will we get any further if we try to define a general listener/programme?

[Honoured Guest]

I've never claimed any inside knowledge. I have none.

I'd be very surprised if you don't all understand broadly what is meant in common usage by "general" and "specialist" in relation to listeners and programmes.

[teamsaint]

It's like all BBC music stations in that weekday daytime programming is aimed at general listeners and the more specialist programmes are broadcast at other times.

6 music is a specialist rock/contemporary music channel.

It is called 6 music.

But its content seems to be chat and classic/easy listening rock. Its daytime programming is for people not yet old enough to listen to R2.

More "specialist " programmes means programmes aimed at people who are actually interested in music, not music to hear in the background while they work.

Why do specialist pr0grammes have to be on at midnight, or outsied peak hours? What research is there that indicates that this the way to build audience, or serve the stations remit?

Apologists for low quality thresholds do none of us any favours.

[french frank]

The killer detail of this Daily Mail piece:

[That the BBC wants Radio 3 to attract more 'mainstream' audiences]

Is this just a rumour?

I don't think it's a rumour: I think it's an out of date reference to the old 2011 review in which Radio 3 proposed that it should do so, as its editorial direction, and the BBC Trust said, 'Carry on, then'. This has been interpreted by some who should know better as the Trust requiring Radio 3 to do this (and Radio 3 has helped that particular canard to circulate).

The Controller of Radio 3 is responsible for its strategy.

[mercia]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...C-Radio-3.html

I know I'm a bit slow but the top of that article says "Roger Wright has left the BBC"
Is that correct ? Is there currently no Controller of Radio 3 ? I had been assuming he was in place until September.