Podcast Purgatory

[Master Jacques]

I heard an interesting comment from Gillian Reynolds, that doyenne of radio critics, on Radio 4 this morning about the danger of Podcasts.

Whether we like it or not, BBC is pushing the Podcast idea onto all of us, not least listeners to Radio 3. Reynolds's comment was that the lethal thing about Podcasting is, that it leads us to select whatever is already congenial, familiar and "liked" to the exclusion of those random encounters with the unexpected, spiky - or plain rebarbative - which are often the most valuable experiences we can have.

Listening to Radio 3's atrociously bland bill of fare this Sunday morning ("curated" by the smiling Sarah Walker) made me wonder if this Podcasting ethos is killing the Channel. There was nothing to challenge or wake up adventurous listeners. We were fed a constant stream of soothing, anodyne Granny's Favourites by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Satie and Mahler (guess which movement of the 5th Symphony?), "balanced" - of course - by some "lively" American jazz or Gershwin (I didn't hang around long enough to find out which).

In other words, perfect Podcastery for those wishing for a quiet Sunday-morning snooze in their bath chairs, but irritating for those of us taking the rare Sunday morning opportunity to listen to Radio 3 in hope of being surprised and/or stimulated.

It looks as if Podcast Programming is here to stay. But can Radio 3 justify 24/7 the insult to public funding, when it is pushing slush like this every morning?

[Dave2002]

Podcasts have good and bad features. The bad, as far as I can tell for R3, is that the audio quality is nothing like as good as it could be, either from DAB or from the HD stream. The good things are that it makes material available for an extended period of time, and it is also in some sense "legal".

I hadn't considered the social effects - but there is an interesting point there. Perhaps BAL is also doing R3 a disservice, by encouraging music enthusiasts to buy CDs or downloads etc., and thus not actually listen to R3 anymore. Not quite as fundamentally flawed as the Shakers who managed to enshrine the seeds of their own demise into their rules.

The end result for R3 is presumably that people who really want to listen to new and/or interesting material are now less interested in listening via R3, and any remaining listeners are listening to (in some circumstances) bland, inoffensive, pap. Hardly reaching out to get new people with a real interest in music, is it - or is it?

[Nick Armstrong]

I heard an interesting comment from Gillian Reynolds, that doyenne of radio critics, on Radio 4 this morning about the danger of Podcasts.

Whether we like it or not, BBC is pushing the Podcast idea onto all of us, not least listeners to Radio 3. Reynolds's comment was that the lethal thing about Podcasting is, that it leads us to select whatever is already congenial, familiar and "liked" to the exclusion of those random encounters with the unexpected, spiky - or plain rebarbative - which are often the most valuable experiences we can have.

Listening to Radio 3's atrociously bland bill of fare this Sunday morning ("curated" by the smiling Sarah Walker) made me wonder if this Podcasting ethos is killing the Channel. There was nothing to challenge or wake up adventurous listeners. We were fed a constant stream of soothing, anodyne Granny's Favourites by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Satie and Mahler (guess which movement of the 5th Symphony?), "balanced" - of course - by some "lively" American jazz or Gershwin (I didn't hang around long enough to find out which).

In other words, perfect Podcastery for those wishing for a quiet Sunday-morning snooze in their bath chairs, but irritating for those of us taking the rare Sunday morning opportunity to listen to Radio 3 in hope of being surprised and/or stimulated.

It looks as if Podcast Programming is here to stay. But can Radio 3 justify 24/7 the insult to public funding, when it is pushing slush like this every morning?

I quite agree with your central paragraph, but can't quite relate that to the Podcast idea. The way I use Podcasts is to have access to certain programmes that ARE likely to provide the unexpected &c, and the surprise and stimulus you mention, which indeed are basically nowhere to be found on R3 between the hours of 6.30am and midday, Sunday to Friday. They enable access to such material conveniently, without having to sit through the repetitive dross, or be bound by schedules.

Mind you, thinking about it, Podcasts seem to be on the wane - Private Passions is the only one I regularly listen to - but a similar logic applies to the full-programme downloads that now enable anything to be listened to any time via the R3 App. Being able to hear Jazz Record Requests when it suits me, rather than having to stay in on a Saturday afternoon, is a major bonus.

So I'm not sure why it's said to be an intrinsic danger of Podcasts that they lead to the selection of the familiar - they can just as easily be used for the opposite. Plus, the Podcast enables access to great material from radio stations abroad - another way of escaping the stranglehold of the banal on Radio 3 mornings.

Nor am I sure why the now typical morning pap on R3 could be regarded as 'Podcast Programming' - as far as I know, Breakfast or Essential Classics or Sunday Brunch or whatever they're called these days aren't available as Podcasts, are they?



.

[french frank]

I agree with GR's basic criticism, that podcasts, like the iPlayer, encourage listeners to seek out what they already think they will be interested in. The whole point of the 'old' Radio 3 was that it introduced you to things you didn't know, or hadn't ever heard of. Most of Radio 3 doesn't do that any more. It gives you the familiar, the hackneyed, the not too demanding, the programme trails - all of which may make you turn off and switch to iPlayer or podcasts. But not find, on a regular basis, the unfamiliar.

[VodkaDilc]

I heard the last few minutes of Gilian Reynolds this morning, with the final comment that she had a new job at the age of 82. Having read her radio columns in the Telegraph, I had noticed that last week's was her last and assumed she was retiring. By chance, later in the morning I bought a copy of The Sunday Times and found she had joined the staff there. I had not seen a copy of The Sunday Times for years, but the dreadful tabloid Observer has sent me back to the only alternative left to me. My question is - did GR give any reasons for her change of paper after such a long period.

(Does anyone else find The Observer is now unreadable? The old Berliner size was ideal, but it has now become a tabloid in every sense of the word. I imagine The Guardian is as bad - I deserted it soon after the referendum turned it into a single-issue publication.)

[Master Jacques]

Caliban, you are of course quite right to point out that the Sunday Morning show is not directly available as a podcast - though of course it is very much there on "listen again" for the next 30 days or so, and "listen again" is a variant on the concept.

Sir Tony Hall was clear recently that Podcasting is very much seen as the future for BBC Radio (this in response to questions about the dubious use of i-player to the exclusion of other, British brands of player - and that Podcasting might well soon be on a paid subscription basis.)

I suppose having GR (who gave no reasons for her late switch to the Sunday Times, Vodkadilc) in my head later in the morning, I added two and two together and made ... well, if not quite five, something like it. This morning's dire show (come back Rob Cowan!) made me think about the very points GR had raised - concerning bland, safe, familiar and hackneyed programming where producers are frightened to try anything adventurous - as threatening Radio in general, and R3 in particular.

Perhaps all the dreadful mush they now churn out between 6:30am and midday (one week I counted four - yes four! - outings for 'Fur Elise', until I thought it was Groundhog Day) could be put behind a paywall, while R3 gets on with doing what it is paid to do (as French Frank so accurately points out).

A new twist on a very old and tired argument, I know ...

[Alain Maréchal]

Would somebody be so kind as to define "podcast"? I understood it to mean a programme for use on an Ipod or similar device, and therefore in reduced quality sound, so I have ignored them ( I listen to my Ipod rarely). Am I incorrect?

[teamsaint]

I heard they are bringing back Police 5 as a plodcast.

[Beef Oven!]

I heard they are bringing back Police 5 as a plodcast.

Sure

[Bryn]

Radio 3 podcasts are certainly at lower bitrates than the HD Sound (320kbps discrete stereo 48kHz AAC-LC) offered for online listening for 30 day following broadcast. There appears to be a choice of 128kbps joint stereo 44.1kHz mp3 or 64kbps mono 44.1kHz mp3.

[Beresford]

Podcasts of Radio 4 programmes such as In Our Time, or More or Less, are well used by many people who want to listen to them commuting, or at the gym - subscribe and they appear on your phone ready to play whatever the wifi signal. But I can't really see the point for R3. The only R3 podcasts I ever used were some talks or essays.

Edit- Re-reading the thread, I think it is more about Lollipop programming than about podcasts - flu has made me a bit duller than usual.

[hmvman]

I subscribe to Music Matters and CotW podcasts. As a magazine programme MM works well as a podcast but I find CotW frustrating as the musical examples are incomplete.