Spare me another newsreader given privileged access to programming

[Davout]

Isn’t about time somebody said enough it’s enough with TV newsreaders getting headline status on programme making.

The latest is Clive Myrie and his Christmas music specials. I’m sure Mr.Myrie is a very pleasant individual, and after all it does does take a lot of effort reading text off an auto cue, but for a Radio 3 audience this is one dumbing down step too far.

For Radio 3 I think a more knowledgeable and engaging Christmas music presenter would be a leading choir master, conductor or opera singer.

[CallMePaul]

I agree with you there, Davout (and welcome to the Forum!). I have been very impressed with his reporting from Ukraine over the last 18 months or so, but this does not necessarily make him an expert on classical music. Is he writing his own introductions and choosing the music himself, or is he simply reading a producer's text? I would hope that it is not the latter. I doubt whether these programmes (which I have not heard) will increase the R3 audience even if trailed on TV or other radio stations.

[french frank]

I think it's cheaper to get someone alteady on the BBC staff to do an extra few hours. Also, well-known people are considered good for attracting prospective listeners to whom they are well-known. R3 has had a record in recent years of employing 'celebrity' broadcasters.

Isn’t about time somebody said enough it’s enough with TV newsreaders getting headline status on programme making.

The latest is Clive Myrie and his Christmas music specials. I’m sure Mr.Myrie is a very pleasant individual, and after all it does does take a lot of effort reading text off an auto cue, but for a Radio 3 audience this is one dumbing down step too far.

For Radio 3 I think a more knowledgeable and engaging Christmas music presenter would be a leading choir master, conductor or opera singer.

[kernelbogey]

I recall his saying on air that he had played trumpet in his youth.

Just sayin'.

[LMcD]

Isn’t about time somebody said enough it’s enough with TV newsreaders getting headline status on programme making.

The latest is Clive Myrie and his Christmas music specials. I’m sure Mr.Myrie is a very pleasant individual, and after all it does does take a lot of effort reading text off an auto cue, but for a Radio 3 audience this is one dumbing down step too far.

For Radio 3 I think a more knowledgeable and engaging Christmas music presenter would be a leading choir master, conductor or opera singer.

Possibly more knowledgeable than Clive Myrie, but finding somebody more engaging could prove difficult! Regarding his musical credentials, he recently presented a Radio 3/Jazz FM series on 'Essential Jazz Albums'. He learnt the violin and trumpet as a teenager and, for my money, is one of the more measured, and less excitable, hosts for Proms on TV.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think it's cheaper to get someone alteady on the BBC staff to do an extra few hours. Also, well-known people are considered good for attracting prospective listeners to whom they are well-known. R3 has had a record in recent years of employing 'celebrity' broadcasters.

Unfortunately FF it doesn’t quite work like that - though a lot of presenters will do (some ) Radio for a smaller fee than TV because they know the budgets are tiny and they either want the profile or they just enjoy doing it. The other great thing is a radio half hour can be made in a morning - even less if you just record the links and they drop the music in later. It is also much less dangerous than presenting the 10 O’Clock News from Kyiv - Clive has more than earned a break from the stresses of it all.
I say profile because doing stuff for R3 and R4 still carries some cachet in the weirdly ultra -competitive world of presenting. As a bonus doing a stuff for R1 and R2 can be very remunerative.
The fact that a high profile BBC presenter like classical music and wants to make programmes about it is , in my view , very , very welcome. Just wish it wasn’t more Christmas stuff - there’s just too much of it and most of it is musically second rate.

[LMcD]

Unfortunately FF it doesn’t quite work like that - though a lot of presenters will do (some ) Radio for a smaller fee than TV because they know the budgets are tiny and they either want the profile or they just enjoy doing it. The other great thing is a radio half hour can be made in a morning - even less if you just record the links and they drop the music in later. It is also much less dangerous than presenting the 10 O’Clock News from Kyiv - Clive has more than earned a break from the stresses of it all.
I say profile because doing stuff for R3 and R4 still carries some cachet in the weirdly ultra -competitive world of presenting. As a bonus doing a stuff for R1 and R2 can be very remunerative.
The fact that a high profile BBC presenter like classical music and wants to make programmes about it is , in my view , very , very welcome. Just wish it wasn’t more Christmas stuff - there’s just too much of it and most of it is musically second rate.

Couldn't agree more .... and it's only 4 programmes, after all.

[Nick Armstrong]

The fact that a high profile BBC presenter like classical music and wants to make programmes about it is , in my view , very , very welcome. Just wish it wasn’t more Christmas stuff - there’s just too much of it and most of it is musically second rate.

In theory yes - but having listened to the first one, the music was by-and-large the best bit - I found the content of his contributions toe-curlingly trite, clichéd and sentimental - the OP’s reference to dumbing-down is spot-on, alas.

[oddoneout]

I should perhaps preface this by saying that as I don't watch TV news, whether Beeb or otherwise, Clive Myrie was not familiar to me.

The general blurb makes it clear it is yet another in the "my fave toons" school of R3 output

Clive Myrie introduces a personal selection of seasonal favourites, with a feast of Advent and Christmas classical music alongside some of his personal discoveries.

He is well known and popular so the attracting an audience argument/justification has some plausibility perhaps. Not for me though - there are enough of those superficial programmes already, and I have no wish to hear all the already well-known seasonal music, especially if it's in bits and pieces.
If it had been series of programmes with more heft, along the lines of this week's CotW, or last Sunday's EMS, and looking at, for instance, the very very many bits(such as the several centuries of music , village carols etc) that don't get a look-in, and perhaps Christmas in other countries and how their traditions(musical and otherwise) shape their celebrations, and presented by R3 proven staff(and/or others as suggested by Davout) - now that I would make time for...
Does the jazz community fare better with Mr Myrie?

https://archive.completemusicupdate.com/article/jazz-fm-and-bbc-radio-3-announce-joint-broadcasts-to-mark-30th-anniversary-of-the-london-jazz-festival/

I don't know what the management conclusion of him presenting the Proms was( and I didn't watch the chat show bits of the TV output), but this has some pertinent points which apply more generally to the use of names to draw in a "classical" audience.

https://blog.thoroughlygood.me/2023/07/15/the-bbc-proms-first-night-tv-comes-good/

[Ein Heldenleben]

In theory yes - but having listened to the first one, the music was by-and-large the best bit - I found the content of his contributions toe-curlingly trite, clichéd and sentimental - the OP’s reference to dumbing-down is spot-on, alas.

Thank you Nick for listening so that I don’t have to.

Was it Chestnuts Roasting By an Open fire toe-curling ?
why is Christmas the excuse for so much sentimentality? I blame Dickens.

[french frank]

Clive has more than earned a break from the stresses of it all.

As an argument, I can see that point of view. And from the presenter's side I can understand the 'Well, I'd quite fancy a few programmes on Radio 3 or Mastermind' feeling. But from Radio 3's point of view it might seem a state of affairs that can be overdone. That said, it could just be that the BBC doesn't employ enough broadcasters who are knowledgeable about classical music to satisfy Radio 3's needs. The 'Well, I like Clive Myrie/Katie Derham/Alan Titchmarsh' argument is the last refuge of the scoundrel .

[LMcD]

As an argument, I can see that point of view. And from the presenter's side I can understand the 'Well, I'd quite fancy a few programmes on Radio 3 or Mastermind' feeling. But from Radio 3's point of view it might seem a state of affairs that can be overdone. That said, it could just be that the BBC doesn't employ enough broadcasters who are knowledgeable about classical music to satisfy Radio 3's needs. The 'Well, I like Clive Myrie/Katie Derham/Alan Titchmarsh' argument is the last refuge of the scoundrel .

I never thought I'd see Alan Titchmarsh and Clive Myrie named in the same sentence.

[kernelbogey]

...I blame Dickens.

Gawd bless yer Mister 'eldenleben, Sir.

[Nick Armstrong]

Thank you Nick for listening so that I don’t have to.

So I was right that your ‘very, very welcome’ was purely theoretical!

I shan’t be listening again.

I don’t mind a bit of Christmas sentimentality but this was mind-numbing

[Ein Heldenleben]

As an argument, I can see that point of view. And from the presenter's side I can understand the 'Well, I'd quite fancy a few programmes on Radio 3 or Mastermind' feeling. But from Radio 3's point of view it might seem a state of affairs that can be overdone. That said, it could just be that the BBC doesn't employ enough broadcasters who are knowledgeable about classical music to satisfy Radio 3's needs. The 'Well, I like Clive Myrie/Katie Derham/Alan Titchmarsh' argument is the last refuge of the scoundrel .

Having a few journalists with knowledge of classical music would be incredibly handy it’s seems as the
Ten O’ Clock news recently illustrated their coverage of the controversial ENO move with shots of The Royal Opera House!
There’s a Twitter thread about it in an opera singer’s feed but as usual I can’t find it alas.