The Choir - Last straw

[Stillhomewardbound]

Age is not the issue here. This is a discussion about content, surely and Radio 3 is a variegated network which constantly addresses itself to different groups at different times. For example, with the likes of the Early Music show, Here & Now, Sound of Cinema & Late Junction.

[Honoured Guest]

Age is not the issue here. This is a discussion about content, surely and Radio 3 is a variegated network which constantly addresses itself to different groups at different times. For example, with the likes of the Early Music show, Here & Now, Sound of Cinema & Late Junction.

I agree, assuming that, by "different groups" you mean "groups with different interests".

But, age is the issue with BBC3, which is what James Corden was talking about.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

If you disagree, why don't you cite Radio 3 programmes which you know or believe to be targeted at a specific age demographic, giving your evidence?

I know there's previously been some disparaging mention on this forum of newly retired people with the time to make exploratory forays into classical music, but I'm not aware that anyone has substantiated a proposal that certain programmes are specifically targeted at that age group.

I wasn't agreeing or disagreeing. I was merely requesting evidence for your statement.
Targeting a specific age range is often patronising. But far worse is the apparent current policy of radio 3 to target only the brain-dead.

[Honoured Guest]

I wasn't agreeing or disagreeing. I was merely requesting evidence for your statement.
Targeting a specific age range is often patronising. But far worse is the apparent current policy of radio 3 to target only the brain-dead.

"Apparent" to you.

My original observation was that, unlike BBC3, Radio 3 hasn't been tasked with targeting a specific age demographic, and hasn't ever announced that it is so doing, as far as I know. So, if there is any such targeting, it's being done clandestinely. I don't think Radio 3 is secretly targeting certain programmes on certain age demographics.

I have no further evidence, and I'm quite willing to take on board any evidence put forward by anyone.

[Serial_Apologist]

"Apparent" to you.

My original observation was that, unlike BBC3, Radio 3 hasn't been tasked with targeting a specific age demographic, and hasn't ever announced that it is so doing, as far as I know. So, if there is any such targeting, it's being done clandestinely. I don't think Radio 3 is secretly targeting certain programmes on certain age demographics.

I have no further evidence, and I'm quite willing to take on board any evidence put forward by anyone.

You are the only poster who has brought age into the discussion.

[teamsaint]

You are the only poster who has brought age into the discussion.

But there is still an opportunity to bring social class into it......

Oh, a good sales rule: look after your core market first.

I thought the BBC was all switched on to the harsh world of commerce these days........

[french frank]

I don't think Radio 3 is secretly targeting certain programmes on certain age demographics.

I have no further evidence, and I'm quite willing to take on board any evidence put forward by anyone.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3226888/BBC-Radio-3-tries-to-woo-teenagers.html

[mercia]

Pied Piper must have had an age demographic thingy

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There was also The Young Idea, with Christopher Hogwood - a programme so undumbed down that today's presenters would never believe it.
His first programme contained the 1812 Overture and Concierto d'Aranjuez, but it became more and moee challenging as time went on.

[Honoured Guest]

You are the only poster who has brought age into the discussion.

In #27, Stillhomewardbound quoted frenchfrank's reference to James Corden's response to a critic of BBC Three. I think JC's essential point was that BBC Three is targeted at a specific age demographic. Stillhomewardbound wondered whether olde-style Radio 3 supporters couldn't reasonably issue a similar rebuke to critics of their favoured programme style. I responded that I didn't think so because Radio 3 programmes aren't targeted at a specific age demographic.

[french frank]

Stillhomewardbound wondered whether olde-style Radio 3 supporters couldn't reasonably issue a similar rebuke to critics of their favoured programme style. I responded that I didn't think so because Radio 3 programmes aren't targeted at a specific age demographic.

I think that age was not the point. I felt - and thought Shb was saying the same - that if what you quaintly describe as 'olde-style Radio 3 supporters' were to suggest that 'nu style' listeners, the wider audience which apparently needs everything simplified and to be not too daunting, were told that 'Radio 3 was not for them and they shouldn't even be listening', such supporters would be lynched by those who play the 'snobbery' and 'elitism' cards whenever they can. Radio 3 was targeted on a specific type of listener - not necessarily knowledgeable but curious to find out, to learn and to be stretched by the unfamilar, esoteric and 'daunting'.

As it is, the majority of daytime programming has been carefully altered so as not to 'intimidate' possible new listeners, of whatever age. The whole point of having a guest like Richard Bacon on Essential Classics is that he is typical of the kind of listener Radio 3 wants to attract, and such listeners get the bulk of the daytime programming (including The Choir), regardless of whether they are listening in any great numbers.

[chorister49]

Isn't the problem with the new format of programmes like The Choir that they seem to be programmed with the assumption that people's attention spans are becoming shorter and shorter? Hence the tendency to play a single movement or excerpt, rather than a whole work, and constantly preview / review what's happening/ed. The programmers clearly have never spent much time with teenage boys, whom they would find have no problem at all concentrating for hours on end on complex online games that require long-term strategy development, collaboration with other players over mics and headphones (sometimes two sets of headphones simultaneously), efficient communication and fast reflexes. Much as I detest the time 'wasted' on these games, they do demonstrate that our offspring are perfectly capable of seeing things through, and don't need everything done and dusted in four and a half minutes.

I am reminded too of a time when I went to a performance of Handel's Messiah with someone who had never been to a classical music concert before. As the applause died away my musician friends and I started discussing the tempi, ensemble, balance, etc. Then we asked him what he thought of the performance. He said, "That was the most amazing thing I've ever heard". We were rightly silenced. People just need to have the opportunity to come into contact with this amazing music - they don't need it spoon fed to them in bite-sized pieces.

[ardcarp]

Similarly, my daughter when aged 10 (and this well before screen-games) sat spellbound through a televised (!!!) performance of The Marriage of Figaro. At the end she announced she couldn't wait to see a live production.

In fact much of the BBC's output...one thinks of factual programmes whether on Science or the Arts.....infantilises the viewer/listener. How long before we have to experience the world as if from the womb?

[Stillhomewardbound]

In fact much of the BBC's output...one thinks of factual programmes whether on Science or the Arts.....infantilises the viewer/listener. How long before we have to experience the world as if from the womb?

I'm not sure, but some place, somewhere, someone is working to produce an app for it!

[gurnemanz]

Similarly, my daughter when aged 10 (and this well before screen-games) sat spellbound through a televised (!!!) performance of The Marriage of Figaro. At the end she announced she couldn't wait to see a live production.

In fact much of the BBC's output...one thinks of factual programmes whether on Science or the Arts.....infantilises the viewer/listener. How long before we have to experience the world as if from the womb?

I can remember sitting down with my daughter aged about 2 and a half watching Rheingold on the TV (mid 80s). Amazingly, she got it - giants, mermaids, gold, rainbow bridge, castle etc. Primitive Jungian archetypes at work accessible even to infants.