Radio 3 online-only 'chill' service to go ahead without public interest test

[french frank]

What's exasperating is that this is sold as expanding choice, providing more value to licence fee payers. At the same time they're offering less/no choice to others. It's quantity over quality and they actually claim that the more time people spend listening the better value they (i.e. listeners!) are getting. Never mind the quality, feel the width.

[kindofblue]

This is indeed depressing and a triumph of marketing, how can we 'sell' classical music. The pernicious effect of this way of seeing music solely in terms of the [supposed] effect it has on our 'wellbeing' is that anything that doesn't have a 'chill' effect is in some way difficult or too modern or just not very good, in a sense it has failed to fulfil its ultimate purpose of relaxing us. So much great music therefore simply fails to make the cut - Mahler? Too long. Schoenberg? No tunes! RVW? Some lovely bits but not the depressing stuff please! No Bartok, Shostakovich, Wagner, let alone anything post-WW2.

A radio station that might make one curious, reassured, happy, sad, irritated, inspired, cranky or occasionally euphoric, and all within one hour, is clearly so very 20th century. I click on a link and I will become chilled because that's what it says on the packet. Instant gratification.

[Retune]

How about an online-only R3 'classic' service? They have an enormous archive of high-quality programming that we normally have no access to. Multi-movement works played all the way through, challenging repertoire, intelligent discussion, and other daring Reithian concepts that defined R3 before the rot set in. Why not start streaming it, or ideally make more of it available on demand? Leave the choice of mood as an exercise for the listener (though I can pretty much guarantee that levels of frustration and irritability would be reduced in some of us).

[oddoneout]

This is indeed depressing and a triumph of marketing, how can we 'sell' classical music. The pernicious effect of this way of seeing music solely in terms of the [supposed] effect it has on our 'wellbeing' is that anything that doesn't have a 'chill' effect is in some way difficult or too modern or just not very good, in a sense it has failed to fulfil its ultimate purpose of relaxing us. So much great music therefore simply fails to make the cut - Mahler? Too long. Schoenberg? No tunes! RVW? Some lovely bits but not the depressing stuff please! No Bartok, Shostakovich, Wagner, let alone anything post-WW2.

A radio station that might make one curious, reassured, happy, sad, irritated, inspired, cranky or occasionally euphoric, and all within one hour, is clearly so very 20th century. I click on a link and I will become chilled because that's what it says on the packet. Instant gratification.

Elements of that used to be something that "proper" R3 could, did and sometimes still does do through recitals and concerts, by means of one's reactions to composers and performers, not by choosing from the equivalent of a menu of small factory processed dishes delivered to the door.

[Serial_Apologist]

This is indeed depressing and a triumph of marketing, how can we 'sell' classical music. The pernicious effect of this way of seeing music solely in terms of the [supposed] effect it has on our 'wellbeing' is that anything that doesn't have a 'chill' effect is in some way difficult or too modern or just not very good, in a sense it has failed to fulfil its ultimate purpose of relaxing us. So much great music therefore simply fails to make the cut - Mahler? Too long. Schoenberg? No tunes! RVW? Some lovely bits but not the depressing stuff please! No Bartok, Shostakovich, Wagner, let alone anything post-WW2.

A radio station that might make one curious, reassured, happy, sad, irritated, inspired, cranky or occasionally euphoric, and all within one hour, is clearly so very 20th century. I click on a link and I will become chilled because that's what it says on the packet. Instant gratification.

That sums it up so well!

[vinteuil]

.

... I want more Rameau, Bruckner, and ars subtilior.

Don't think this is the station for me...

.

[AuntDaisy]

... I want more Rameau, Bruckner, and ars subtilior.

Don't think this is the station for me...

Was this what you had in mind?

[Hitch]

Let's say that Radio 3 Chill proves popular with listeners and grabs some of Classic FM's and Radio 2's audience, and also Radio 3's audience, to the tune (no pun intended) of, say, 2.5 million listeners. That is all well and good. However, a "successful" station like that will probably secure a decent chunk of the BBC's radio budget in the years to come. To take a pessimistic slant, who knows if, in a decade or two, Radio 3 proper might have its funding reduced as "there is no longer the demand" for a niche station catering to niche interests. R3 could even be elbowed aside. That might be far-fetched, but this is a country that has seen the Arts founder under the tender care of 12 culture secretaries in the last 14 years.

Perhaps Radio Chill might be better described as Radio Opium?

[french frank]

To take a pessimistic slant, who knows if, in a decade or two, Radio 3 proper might have its funding reduced as "there is no longer the demand" for a niche station catering to niche interests. R3 could even be elbowed aside. That might be far-fetched ...

I don't think it's that far-fetched: it's what I was suggesting a few posts back. The new station will cost something and the money to pay for it will come from somewhere. The direction has been for years that the popular services (in terms of audience) get progressively more of the cake and the less popular ones get less. And still on the metric of cost per listener R3 will be "expensive" even though it gets a fraction of what other 24-hour services get. So the programmes get 'cheaper' - lots of 3-hour presenter-led CD sequences with the odd guest.