Radio 3 Schedule changes

[arubin]

I am new to this forum so I don't know if this has been discussed but I was wondering what people thought about the schedule changes.

I am unhappy about:
The loss of Record Review Extra. It was good to have the opportunity to listen to the crowned recording.
The loss of Lunchtime Concert, I suppose it has been merged into Classical Live but I preferred the shorted more focused programme to the new three hour sequence.

I tend to listen to Radio 3 on BBC sounds rather than live so I tend to prefer shorter more specific programming to these long sequences of unrelated content.

[french frank]

I am new to this forum so I don't know if this has been discussed but I was wondering what people thought about the schedule changes.

I am unhappy about:
The loss of Record Review Extra. It was good to have the opportunity to listen to the crowned recording.
The loss of Lunchtime Concert, I suppose it has been merged into Classical Live but I preferred the shorted more focused programme to the new three hour sequence.

I tend to listen to Radio 3 on BBC sounds rather than live so I tend to prefer shorter more specific programming to these long sequences of unrelated content.

Hello - I'm glad you found your way in! Welcome. Yes, both those subjects have been discussed. I'll post the links to the threads here when I've located them.

Actually, the loss of Record Review Extra has been mentioned in passing, but the main discussion is about Record Review being moved to a less conspicuous slot. Discussion here.

There was already a regular thread about the lunchtime concerts so comments about Mondays being the only remaining recital were added to that thread. It's here.

You may take it that your views are widely shared here and elsewhere.

[LMcD]

I am new to this forum so I don't know if this has been discussed but I was wondering what people thought about the schedule changes.

I am unhappy about:
The loss of Record Review Extra. It was good to have the opportunity to listen to the crowned recording.
The loss of Lunchtime Concert, I suppose it has been merged into Classical Live but I preferred the shorted more focused programme to the new three hour sequence.

I tend to listen to Radio 3 on BBC sounds rather than live so I tend to prefer shorter more specific programming to these long sequences of unrelated content.

Hello and welcome! Some performances that might have featured in the Lunchtime Concert had it not been axed may crop up in Classical Live, but will take some finding, I would imagine. Live Wigmore Hall concerts are continuing, at least for now. I assume/hope that we shall continue to enjoy concerts from festivals in Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, and elsewhere in the UK and mainland Europe.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I am new to this forum so I don't know if this has been discussed but I was wondering what people thought about the schedule changes.

I am unhappy about:
The loss of Record Review Extra. It was good to have the opportunity to listen to the crowned recording.
The loss of Lunchtime Concert, I suppose it has been merged into Classical Live but I preferred the shorted more focused programme to the new three hour sequence.

I tend to listen to Radio 3 on BBC sounds rather than live so I tend to prefer shorter more specific programming to these long sequences of unrelated content.

Welcome Arubin to what I suspect is the fastest growing club in the UK at the moment.

[smittims]

Wot? Faster than the Reform Party?

Welcome arubin. Your screen-name reminds me of Dr. Arabin in The Last Chronicle of Barset.

I must admit I don't mind Composer of the Week moving to 4 pm, as it means I hear bit of it then (or as much as I can stand).

[esmondo]

My main listening time is the weekend, so I was aghast at the idea of three hours in bed with Tom Service on Saturday, followed by - Jools Holland! (shome mishtake surely?).

It actually turned out not too bad - Tom kept his pontification to an acceptable level and largely let the music do the talking, at least at the start, which was the only bit I listened to.

And even Jools didn't start off so badly - the live improvisation was a nice idea, though the boogie-woogie-meister didn't show much improvisatory flair himself.

What I did find unbearable was Sara Mohr-Pietsch's Music Map - "I'm interested in how you FEEL listening to this music RIGHT NOW" - and I switched off pretty quickly.

I'm relieved that my must-listen shows (Record Review, This Classical Life, Private Passions, Words and Music) are still there, but I must plaintively protest to whoever may be listening that more of this user-friendly woo-woo sonic wallpaper is most emphatically not what I want.

[Serial_Apologist]

My main listening time is the weekend, so I was aghast at the idea of three hours in bed with Tom Service on Saturday, followed by - Jools Holland! (shome mishtake surely?).

It actually turned out not too bad - Tom kept his pontification to an acceptable level and largely let the music do the talking, at least at the start, which was the only bit I listened to.

And even Jools didn't start off so badly - the live improvisation was a nice idea, though the boogie-woogie-meister didn't show much improvisatory flair himself.

What I did find unbearable was Sara Mohr-Pietsch's Music Map - "I'm interested in how you FEEL listening to this music RIGHT NOW" - and I switched off pretty quickly.

I'm relieved that my must-listen shows (Record Review, This Classical Life, Private Passions, Words and Music) are still there, but I must plaintively protest to whoever may be listening that more of this user-friendly woo-woo sonic wallpaper is most emphatically not what I want.

Or most of us, particularly those of us coming from a certain age demographic. I rather think we've been relegated by the :Powers That Be to the byways of history.

[Pulcinella]

A shareable (I hope) Sunday Times article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/df0b5352-deab-45a1-b17a-b92688f1d094?shareToken=b2e626fe92bfb83b9bd33c907c0cd14e

[LMcD]

Or most of us, particularly those of us coming from a certain age demographic. I rather think we've been relegated by the :Powers That Be to the byways of history.

[french frank]

A shareable (I hope) Sunday Times article:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/df0b5352-deab-45a1-b17a-b92688f1d094?shareToken=b2e626fe92bfb83b9bd33c907c 0cd14e

I liked "Schedulers do not make alterations casually — these will be the result of months of audience analysis." No, but this does not mean 'What do our listeners want?' but 'What can we get away with that moves us closer to what we want/need to do?". Good point about CotW, regularly shunted about, from its time-honoured 9am slot: this is inconvenient from managers'/schedulers' point of view. 9am is recognised as an important 'junction' when listeners are most likely to move to another station or switch off and go and do something else. CotW is not a populist show so that would make 9am Breakfast listeners leave R3 to avoid it.

If there is a change of programme (another ploy has been to continue Breakfast until 9.30/10am), the later programme must have a similar sort of appeal as the breakfast programme to 'hold on' to the audience. Shameful that CotW is finally consigned to a graveyard slot of 4pm, but it must be made as easy as possible for the new casual/R2/R4/CFM listener to find what they like on 'live' R3. And b*****r what R3 listeners want. The content is secondary to the managerial aims.

[kernelbogey]

...it must be made as easy as possible for the new casual/R2/R4/CFM listener to find what they like on 'live' R3. And b*****r what R3 listeners want. The content is secondary to the managerial aims.

This reflects my own view of the changes, and no doubt that of many others here: but we must be viewed by the management as numerically small and/or disposable, compared with that 'casual/R2/R4/CFM' cohort.

[oddoneout]

I liked "Schedulers do not make alterations casually — these will be the result of months of audience analysis." No, but this does not mean 'What do our listeners want?' but 'What can we get away with that moves us closer to what we want/need to do?". Good point about CotW, regularly shunted about, from its time-honoured 9am slot: this is inconvenient from managers'/schedulers' point of view. 9am is recognised as an important 'junction' when listeners are most likely to move to another station or switch off and go and do something else. CotW is not a populist show so that would make 9am Breakfast listeners leave R3 to avoid it.

If there is a change of programme (another ploy has been to continue Breakfast until 9.30/10am), the later programme must have a similar sort of appeal as the breakfast programme to 'hold on' to the audience. Shameful that CotW is finally consigned to a graveyard slot of 4pm, but it must be made as easy as possible for the new casual/R2/R4/CFM listener to find what they like on 'live' R3. And b*****r what R3 listeners want. The content is secondary to the managerial aims.

The article gave me the impression that the writer is not what one might call a "full-fat" R3 listener, and probably not someone who ever experienced a rather more meaty schedule than has existed in more recent years. In other words an ideal target for the new look R3?
A reference is made to listener drift during the day - which has apparently informed Jackson's changes - but for me that just raises questions about why the drift. If it is relatively recent is it possible it might be linked (especially on Saturday, and more recently to weekday Afternoon Concert) to the changes that have been previously made. I assume there might have been a tendency for listeners to RR to switch off once it was finished, but was the lack of replacement/staying power beyond that also linked to the afternoon programmes not being of interest. That has been my position since the likes of This Classical Life turned up. By the same token I doubt I'm the only one who "drifted" increasingly from EC and completely from Afternoon Concert as was, and the new offerings, suffering as they do from all the bad bits and few if any of the more acceptable bits of their predecessors, will not get me back. But then that doesn't signify; we know that, as has been observed several times, most recently by kb, we are not the audience that matters or that they want.

[Ein Heldenleben]

There are quite a few pretty senior people (in TV at any rate) who think the art (or science ) of scheduling is a completely bogus one. In other words schedule changes make little difference (unless unannounced which causes uproar ) to audience figures except in the short term.And even when they do show a link it’s impossible to prove it’s a causative one , In Radio it’s even more difficult to show a causative link because the audience figures are so flaky an there are so many competing channels and now streamers.

In my view moment would have been better spent improving navigation on BBC sounds . The user interface is very clunky - particularly its linkage with the R3 website. The Radio 3 schedule link is really hidden away in the main pages. When you compare it with Netflix or Prime it’s a bit of a joke.

[french frank]

The Radio 3 schedule link is really hidden away in the main pages. When you compare it with Netflix or Prime it’s a bit of a joke.

The cynic might think it's only for the few R3 listeners wanting to navigate to it quickly anyway. Or easier for non-listeners to find - but better to point them towards services they'll really like. As the graphs have shown over the years, radio listening is principally driven by the time of day, so to drive up a network's numbers (as far as possible) put the popular stuff on at peak listening time and bury the specialist stuff where the keen minority will find it if they want to. Ratings by day, reputation by night.

Refreshing the schedules means tweaking things a bit, dropping 'what is no longer needed' (an R3 management comment from a few years back) and putting on a few new shows. Listening to Essential Classics clearly dropped significantly when they had that boring full-length piece on every morning. So put on some more lively presenter chat and shorter bursts of music. Quote Miss Jean Brodie again here.

The BBC - immaterial whether willingly or not - has to focus on fighting off the competition and not throwing money away on unfashionable minority content. Being generous to the BBC rather than deeply disparaging.

[Ein Heldenleben]

The cynic might think it's only for the few R3 listeners wanting to navigate to it quickly anyway. Or easier for non-listeners to find - but better to point them towards services they'll really like. As the graphs have shown over the years, radio listening is principally driven by the time of day, so to drive up a network's numbers (as far as possible) put the popular stuff on at peak listening time and bury the specialist stuff where the keen minority will find it if they want to. Ratings by day, reputation by night.

Refreshing the schedules means tweaking things a bit, dropping 'what is no longer needed' (an R3 management comment from a few years back) and putting on a few new shows. Listening to Essential Classics clearly dropped significantly when they had that boring full-length piece on every morning. So put on some more lively presenter chat and shorter bursts of music. Quote Miss Jean Brodie again here.

The BBC - immaterial whether willingly or not - has to focus on fighting off the competition and not throwing money away on unfashionable minority content. Being generous to the BBC rather than deeply disparaging.

I’ve not been able to find the figures for Radio but for some TV progs on demand viewing (not on the day catch up ) is 25 to 50 per cent of total viewing - hugely significant.