The Eternal Breakfast Debate in a New Place

[french frank]

Sorry to be a bit pedantic there, ff. Though there is a real point behind the complaints about website errors from Suffolkcoastal et al. If you were checking the playlist in advance to see about listening to particular works and saw that Corelli work listed, you might be uncertain as to whether it were a misprint for the very frequently played G minor concerto ("Christmas") or the fine op 6 no 4 concerto in D major, or indeed the one it actually was, op 6 no 7 also in D. In my case I would not be especially keen to hear the G minor but would be interested in hearing either of the D major concerti. So you might listen in at the scheduled time to find out which concerto was to be played, or you might just give it up as a bad job.

I agree with your general points though.

Not at all pedantic - absolutely correct! And although the mistake was indeed there in the original - and I only had a hard copy print-out from way back, I'm not sure which year - I did neglect, in my haste to reply, to copy the following line which made it clear it was Op 6/7. Still an error, since it clearly says D minor, but not quite as confusing in the original.

[antongould]

1. As a preamble : it's always something of a puzzle to me that people who can't give their full concentration at breakfast time are so clear in their minds as to what it is they don't want to be listening to with their full concentration. And that although most people are quite resigned to switching on the radio in the middle of a piece of music there is some resistance to switching off in the middle of a piece of music (hence short pieces so that you never have to wait long for the end).

.................it's not a puzzle to me - for the past 30 odd years breakfast time was about the only time I could consistently listen to the the radio what with work and raising a family and I admit I couldn't at all times give the music the attention it deserved. If a certain piece appealed or rang distant bells then I was gradually drawn in. I feel, seemingly wrongly that this applies to others especially the potential audience. But then I am obviously wrong because texts, trails and carefully balanced snippets from the Grauniad and the Telewag don't bother me at all!!!

[antongould]

until SMP and RC write their memoirs I guess we'll never really know. But this image that goes around hereabouts of RC as living some sort of hell created by the bosses doesn't necessarily ring true to me.....................

[french frank]

.................it's not a puzzle to me - for the past 30 odd years breakfast time was about the only time I could consistently listen to the the radio what with work and raising a family and I admit I couldn't at all times give the music the attention it deserved. If a certain piece appealed or rang distant bells then I was gradually drawn in. I feel, seemingly wrongly that this applies to others especially the potential audience. But then I am obviously wrong because texts, trails and carefully balanced snippets from the Grauniad and the Telewag don't bother me at all!!!

Well, you've responded to the 'preamble' but not to the reply to your question: namely, that since the early '90s the drivetime programmes have been for the 33%, like you, who are busy getting off to work in the morning.

The issue is, how far should R3 go down the route of trivialising and lightening the programme? The fact that the interventions 'don't bother you (at all)' isn't an endorsement of their inclusion. If, say, half find them annoying and the other half aren't bothered, the solution is clear: drop the interventions. If half hate them and half love them, there's a problem.

You haven't really explained what the problem is about switching off the radio if you have to leave home before the end of a piece of music. My guess is that people do that all the time. My guess is that when it gets towards the time they have to leave the house they're no longer concentrating on the music at all.

Here's a pre-'drivetime' schedule, Morning Concert, 7am-8.30am:

7.00 Mozart: Overture, The Impresario
7.04 Vaughan Williams: Romance (for harmonica)
7.11 Liszt: Concerto in the Hungarian Style
7.30 News
7.35 Handel: Arrival of the Queen of Sheba
7.38 Milhaud: Scaramouche
7.46 Dittersdorf: Symphony No 2 in D
8.03 Beethoven: Choral Fantasia Op 80
8.30 News

[And isn't 7-8.30 plenty long enough for a programme aimed at people getting ready to go to work?]

[mercia]

[And isn't 7-8.30 plenty long enough for a programme aimed at people getting ready to go to work?]

well I guess people go to work at different times. Someone starting work at 10am might want their getting-ready-to-go-to-work music from 8.30 onwards. awkward little s*d aren't I?

[french frank]

well I guess people go to work at different times. Someone starting work at 10am might want their getting-ready-to-go-to-work music from 8.30 onwards. awkward little s*d aren't I?

Yes

And then, what about the late shift and night workers? They might want their getting-up programme at midday to 1.30pm. And many people have to be in work by 7am, up at 5.30am. And so on.

But this 'potential' audience is the questionable issue: do we define the listener we're trying to attract and carefully change and tailor the/any programme to the likely preferences of that audience? Or do we say, 'Station X, programme X is this kind of station/programme and it is for the audience that appreciates this kind of station/programme'?

And why do (any) listeners produce arguments about R3 needing to increase it audience and attract a new audience when the BBC insists that R3 is not expected to increase its audience? The only rationale for doing so would be if the audience was gradually declining. But it hasn't been. The only sign of a rush to the exit door has been when big changes of style and content have been made which might appeal to a 'potential' audience but don't appeal to the existing one.

[antongould]

Many thanks to mercia for coming back on the first point I was going to make I would say on the basis of my workplace breakfast, dare I say, is from about 7 'til 10!

I think my argument may be being stretched - I am not talking about any programme I am talking about Breakfast. I am not looking to increase R3's audience I am talking about maintaining it at present levels - to do this new blood is, of course, needed.
On the shorter popular pieces take my morning, PLEASE take my morning - grandson drags me up at 7 - then starts waking aunties and uncles and we have the weekend morning in Gould Towers. The music I choose is not Breakfast for once but a CD of short piano pieces all recognisable and not I would suppose suffolkcoastal's favorite breakfast fare! But in occasional moments of quiet or rest I am "in there". Even for 2m 56sec of wonder I have Mendelssohn's Song Without Words in relative quiet and stillness and watch a light sabre battle in the sun drenched garden.
In such, I believe not unusual circumstances a longer, intricate, evolving piece would just be lost.
On the texts, trailers, cuttings I don't love them - I find them interesting and unobtrusive if they are causing pain to the majority I could live without them. What I do dislike are adverts so CFM or whatever is not for me even it there is a feeling if that is where me and "my kind" should be.
But ff please have the last word for a while as I suspect we are boring others and probably even ourselves!

[Norfolk Born]

Sorry to be a bit pedantic there, ff. Though there is a real point behind the complaints about website errors from Suffolkcoastal et al. If you were checking the playlist in advance to see about listening to particular works and saw that Corelli work listed, you might be uncertain as to whether it were a misprint for the very frequently played G minor concerto ("Christmas") or the fine op 6 no 4 concerto in D major, or indeed the one it actually was, op 6 no 7 also in D. In my case I would not be especially keen to hear the G minor but would be interested in hearing either of the D major concerti. So you might listen in at the scheduled time to find out which concerto was to be played, or you might just give it up as a bad job.

I agree with your general points though.

I noticed with interest that David Bowie's recording of 'Peter and The Wolf' was included in Classical Collection this week. As I had to go out that morning, I fortunately decided to record the whole programme - I say 'forunately' because in the event the Prokofiev started (and finished) 8 minutes earlier than shown in the Radio Times. Right work, right performance, wrong time...

[Bax-of-Delights]

A question for suffolcoastal:
Do my ears deceive me but is the 1812 Overture making it's second outing this week?

Edited to add: AND Copland's Rodeo?

[Suffolkcoastal]

The answer to both, if memory serves me correctly, I can confirm when I get home this evening, is no. However the Dance with the Mandolins from that other old R3 warhorse Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet has appeared twice (the other on in-tune of course)and I see we had Slavonic Dance No 53 yesterday! Going back to Rodeo, it accounts for around 25% of the Copland broadcast this year. It's worse for Bernstein, West Side Story and Candide account for over 75% of Bernstein broadcast.

[StephenO]

Apologies if this has been suggested before but is there any reason why Through the Night - that bastion of sane, civilized broadcasting - couldn't simply continue for another two or three hours? I rarely manage to catch more than the last half hour or so as I'm still asleep but its format, blessedly free of texts, trails and waffle, would seem to constitute ideal early morning listening. If necessary there could still be five minute breaks for the news at 7 and 8 but, apart from that, let the music flow...

[french frank]

Apologies if this has been suggested before but is there any reason why Through the Night - that bastion of sane, civilized broadcasting - couldn't simply continue for another two or three hours?

There may be ... I don't know. But wouldn't that mean repeating the first two or three hours from the night before? It would certainly be cheaper as all they would need to do would be to keep the computer play-out system going. It would be more problematic to put in five-minute news breaks.

Whereas I think there are lessons which Breakfast could learn from TTN, it wouldn't seem like a very enterprising use of airtime. Next move, repeat the whole six hours ... . That would seem even closer to turning R3 into a classical jukebox. Second-rate as an idea even if the music itself is okay. Apart from anything else, the programmes which used to be 'hand-produced' for each broadcast are now repeated in their entirety more and more often so there would be even more complaints about repeats ("Oh, no, not that Pierné Konzertstück again" - which appears to have been played on Mon 27 June and Tues 28 in the same recording ...).

[Suffolkcoastal]

The point about the Pierne piece is worth making, you'll often get the same work played two or three times in a couple of weeks on TTN & then doesn't reoccur on TTN for several months or over a year. As I've mentioned a few other times, TTN is now being more and more frequently 'invaded' by the daytime warhorses. In a year or so I fear TTN will be indistinguishable from the rest of the R3 fare.

[Norfolk Born]

In a year or so I fear TTN will be indistinguishable from the rest of the R3 fare.

As long as that?

[AndyJW]

Widor toccata

Perhaps Suffolkcoastal can tell me how many times this has been played this year!
I love it, and played it at a wedding on Saturday, but it seems to be played at least once every week on Breakfast!
I though the speed in today's performance (Stephen Cleobury) was just right. some performances sound like a 100m sprint!
Andy