Catherine Bott's new Classic FM Show

[Beef Oven!]

I really do not see why CFM should be laughed at for doing exactly what it says it is doing. It has (I assume) never offered anything other than pleasant, enjoyable, and light classical music listening. As I said on another thread, Catherine is now talking to beginners. It’s not advanced listeners’ place to walk in and laugh at what’s going on.

No matter how good Lucie’s programmes are, weekends are not the same without Catherine’s Early Music Show but that doesn’t give us an excuse to laugh at CFM. It’s Radio3 that should be laughed at for losing an excellent presenter like Catherine.

Neat summary d. Although it's not strictly my cup of tea, I've tuned in. CFM is lucky, as are the audience.

[Serial_Apologist]

Superbly put, sir. I wish Catherine all the best, as do many on here.

Sir!

[Barbirollians]

It has (I assume) never offered anything other than pleasant, enjoyable, and light classical music listening. .

Try and listen to it for more than an hour or so - endless adverts , programmes that are nothing but advertising for their latest rebundling of popular classics into compilation CDs sold to the naive at high prices , crossover bilge and presenters many of whom are utterly gormless . One not all that long ago referred to one of sibelius's violin concertos .

I don't blame Catherine Bott after the way the EMS was treated but Classic FM is atrocious ( (save for its full evening concert ), in horribly compressed sound and not something Radio 3 should be aping . When it does we get Breakfast, Essential Classics and Sound of Cinema seasons during which lengthy evening talks are devoted to Celine Dion singing rubbish from Titanic

[Beef Oven!]

Sir!

Nothing wrong with being polite

[Nick Armstrong]

Nothing wrong with being polite

I agree, Madam

[Beef Oven!]

I agree, Madam

Miss

[Nick Armstrong]

[gurnemanz]

I really do not see why CFM should be laughed at for doing exactly what it says it is doing. It has (I assume) never offered anything other than pleasant, enjoyable, and light classical music listening. As I said on another thread, Catherine is now talking to beginners. It’s not advanced listeners’ place to walk in and laugh at what’s going on.

No matter how good Lucie’s programmes are, weekends are not the same without Catherine’s Early Music Show but that doesn’t give us an excuse to laugh at CFM. It’s Radio3 that should be laughed at for losing an excellent presenter like Catherine.

I don't see why it's OK to laugh at Radio 3 but not at CFM. I'm not laughing at either. I assume that most CFM listeners not are actually "beginners" but quite long-term and experienced fans of classical music who like the station's style (e.g. my father, now passed on, and sister, still with us). I would not presume loftily to call myself an "advanced" listener just because I dislike their style and prefer a different approach. I don't listen to CFM but never assumed that it was so bland as never to "offer anything but pleasant, enjoyable, and light classical music" to untutored, undemanding herds of easily pleased beginners.

I don't know much about the circumstances of Catherine Bott's career move. I liked her as a R3 presenter and appreciated her as a singer over many years. I presume she wants to make a living.

[doversoul1]

I don't see why it's OK to laugh at Radio 3 but not at CFM. I'm not laughing at either. I assume that most CFM listeners not are actually "beginners" but quite long-term and experienced fans of classical music who like the station's style (e.g. my father, now passed on, and sister, still with us). I would not presume loftily to call myself an "advanced" listener just because I dislike their style and prefer a different approach. I don't listen to CFM but never assumed that it was so bland as never to "offer anything but pleasant, enjoyable, and light classical music" to untutored, undemanding herds of easily pleased beginners.

I don't know much about the circumstances of Catherine Bott's career move. I liked her as a R3 presenter and appreciated her as a singer over many years. I presume she wants to make a living.

I agree that beginner / advance was not an accurate analogy: ‘different types of audience’ is probably better. My point is that CFM (I assume) does not pretend to be what it is not whereas R3 does.

As for Catherine Bott’s career move, making a living is probably a major reason but I imagine her principles also had a lot to do with it.

[french frank]

Classic FM is atrocious

You might as well say that Radio 1 and Radio 2 are 'atrocious'. They are provided for a different kind of audience (as ds has said) and suit their tastes - very well, as their listening figures illustrate. That merely prompts the question as to why Radio 3 cannot be to the tastes of people who take their music listening (of whatever kind) more seriously than using it as a pleasant background to doing other things and an affable companion with whom you can chat.

I'm not sure that Radio 3 listeners are laughing at what it has become...

[Barbirollians]

I disagree Classic FM pretends to be a light classical music station . It is nothing of the kind . It plays an enormous amount of non-classical crossover music . What makes it atrocious is not ,however, what is played but how it is presented and the purposes behind it .

The recent review by Robert Matthew Walker in IRR of the guide to classical music written by two of its senior executives is instructive . This guide is riddled with inaccuracies and sweeping statements . It teaches its listeners nothing about classical music it just provides them with aural wallpaper.

[french frank]

I disagree Classic FM pretends to be a light classical music station . It is nothing of the kind . It plays an enormous amount of non-classical crossover music . What makes it atrocious is not ,however, what is played but how it is presented and the purposes behind it .

The recent review by Robert Matthew Walker in IRR of the guide to classical music written by two of its senior executives is instructive . This guide is riddled with inaccuracies and sweeping statements . It teaches its listeners nothing about classical music it just provides them with aural wallpaper.

It's also a commercially funded station that has to provide what people want or it gets smaller audiences and depleted revenues.

It is a light music station centred on classical music, principally aimed at audiences who perceive Radio 3's presentation to be 'daunting, 'intimidating', 'stuffy' and 'inaccessible'. What is the point of it being other than what it is?

[Beef Oven!]

I would add that as time goes by, people are less fastidious, and therefore less worried about presenters making the odd error e.g how many violin concertos may or may not have written by so-and-so. And the more we focus on it, the more elitist, snobby and inaccessible we, and our beloved music becomes.

Also, I don't understand why we must capitulate and believe that it's only 'light' music and simplistic things that can be popular. Actually, CFM has had a quite a few meaty, thought-provoking broadcasts of its own.

They get 5.2 million people tuning in each week and we get 2 million, so they must've taken some of our listeners. It can't just be because they broadcast easy-listening music. Something else is going on.

[amateur51]

I would add that as time goes by, people are less fastidious ...

Any evidence for this startling assertion?

[french frank]

They get 5.2 million people tuning in each week and we get 2 million, so they must've taken some of our listeners. It can't just be because they broadcast easy-listening music. Something else is going on.

Part of it is that over a couple of generations, the BBC has removed most classical music from the mainstream ('popular') services. At one time the Home Service used to broadcast Proms concerts. They got bigger audiences than the same concert got on the Third. That's mainly to do with the 'audience expectations' - they expected the Home Service to be inviting and the Third to be uninviting. But a couple of generations now hardly have any contact with classical music on the BBC except on one small distant place which people aren't quite sure how to find or what to expect.

(I use 'popular' to mean 'which attract large, even 'mass', audiences). There seems to me to be no reason at all why 'classical music' should not be, in that sense 'popular' except that other kinds of 'popular' music have crowded it out of the marketplace so that it seems both 'different' and 'unattractive'. If you notice some product that doesn't sell well, you tend to think there's something wrong with it, it's not up to standard.

The BBC opted to follow the popular/populist route long ago. Classic FM has shown that younger audiences can appreciate the music. The BBC lost its nerve. [All views expressed are my own]