Controller, BBC Radio 3

[Honoured Guest]

Did I somehow miss out on some seven months? I must have, since mentioning either of these two as a potential Radio 3 Controller can only be an April Fools joke.

No, you didn't anyhow.

[mercia]

No one had better musical credentials than the last controller.

is that no one in the world or no one of those who applied for the job at the time ?

[french frank]

is that no one in the world or no one of those who applied for the job at the time ?

Well, possibly no one in the world, but not being too literal , I meant they were very good!

[mercia]

I thought we (on this forum) had a collective downer on the last controller, but perhaps that had nothing to do with his 'musical credentials'

[french frank]

I thought we (on this forum) had a collective downer on the last controller, but perhaps that had nothing to do with his 'musical credentials'

Nothing to do with his musical qualification to do the job. Just, in my view, that he messed up.

[Zucchini]

As far as I can see, it isn't a job many people WANT...

I think there's a lot of truth in that. The really big guns with worldwide contacts, creative vision and an enviable knowledge of the arts industry would want the Proms job - but not the boredom of managing a 168 hours a week little backwater of the BBC - such that for months people sharing the lift haven't the faintest idea who you are. The NAO reported for 2008 Proms that 84 concerts were granted 67 hrs of TV airtime and 303hrs of radio - enough to keep any egotist happy! (Proms appointee wouldn't have to be British of course).

[french frank]

The really big guns with worldwide contacts, creative vision and an enviable knowledge of the arts industry would want the Proms job - but not the boredom of managing a 168 hours a week little backwater of the BBC

I'm still a bit unsure about who appoints the Proms Director. If it's supposed to be CR3, they can just appoint themselves (or themself). And it's strange that when Kenyon gave up, his only role was then Director of the Proms, yet RW was able to take over and hold both roles for 7 years. How much do they actually do themselves?!

Thanks for the reminder of that NAO report, Zucchers. Something I'd been meaning to calculate. In 2009/10 the Proms cost Radio 3 £4.3m, out of its service budget of £36.6m. I make that 11.7% of budget. If that 303 hours is roughly similar each year (concerts + repeats), that's 3.5% of broadcast time. Proportionately, that makes the Proms quite a drain on R3's budget. Especially since it also spent £7.9m supporting the Performing Groups - more than 20% of its budget, but filling only 7% of broadcast hours.

I make that about a third of its total budget going on supporting the two BBC flagships which only account for just over 10% of the hours it has to fill. No wonder it has to cut back on the rest of the schedule ...

[teamsaint]

I'm still a bit unsure about who appoints the Proms Director. If it's supposed to be CR3, they can just appoint themselves (or themself). And it's strange that when Kenyon gave up, his only role was then Director of the Proms, yet RW was able to take over and hold both roles for 7 years. How much do they actually do themselves?!

Thanks for the reminder of that NAO report, Zucchers. Something I'd been meaning to calculate. In 2009/10 the Proms cost Radio 3 £4.3m, out of its service budget of £36.6m. I make that 11.7% of budget. If that 303 hours is roughly similar each year (concerts + repeats), that's 3.5% of broadcast time. Proportionately, that makes the Proms quite a drain on R3's budget. Especially since it also spent £7.9m supporting the Performing Groups - more than 20% of its budget, but filling only 7% of broadcast hours.

I make that about a third of its total budget going on supporting the two BBC flagships which only account for just over 10% of the hours it has to fill. No wonder it has to cut back on the rest of the schedule ...

where does BBC TV money come into the calculations?

interesting article here from a few years ago.
Mind you, not factually 100% accurate, as it claims that punk was at its height in the summer of 1975........

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2009/08/what-price-bbc-proms.html

[french frank]

where does BBC TV money come into the calculations?

I think the channels that broadcast concerts chip in their share. I managed to inveigle out of the Trust how much was charged to Radio 3 that year!

interesting article here from a few years ago.
Mind you, not factually 100% accurate, as it claims that punk was at its height in the summer of 1975........

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2009/08...bbc-proms.html

Will take a look - ol' Pliable usually makes good points.

[french frank]

Hmm, I see he thinks the Proms are cheap for television. Not sure that I agree that they're cheap for Radio 3. It starts out with a service budget about the same size as Radio 1's and then has to subsidise the Proms and PGs in the way I said. Though they are probably better value than the vast sums paid out to R1 & R2 presenters ...

[french frank]

I see Alan Davey is tipped (by the S. Times) as being announced this week as the new Controller. I can only see the beginning of the article, though. Interviews - or some - have taken place. Knows about classical music, not about broadcasting. He'll need to be a strong character not to go native among the BBC broadcasters if he does land the job: who listens when, what audience to target, how to get listeners tuned in for longer &c &c.

[MrGongGong]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davey_(musician)

Get's my vote

[french frank]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Davey_(musician)



Get's my vote

That from a Sibelius enthusiast - I'm shocked. Shocked.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... i confess to an appalling fatalism about the BBC; the comedy meisters were complaining a few months back that normal conversation was impossible with Suits@Aunt and now Bennett does the same

there is deep anguish in the universities at the commercialisation and contractual transactionalism of academic endeavour ...

i wonder if there are real people in power any more. we seem to live in a Dr Who story where aliens have taken human form ..... there are no real people in power anywhere


the extra terrestrials have a great difficulty in understanding the reality of culture [as opposed to 'show'] .... and its impact on all our lives

if it is suicidal for the controller of R3 to make a stand for real art, real culture. real people [not bricollage and personality and sugared likeability] what is the point?

i read an interesting piece in LRB this morning reviewing a book about a thought experiment in which the author, Samuel Scheffler, asks what would we do if confronted not by our own death but the death of our species, its extinction, what point/meaning would our lives then have? ... seems to me that one response is the 'gimme' rush of looting ...just as the kids went free shopping a year or so ago, the aliens of Suits@* are on a gimme grab for all the control/career/cash that at all and any cost you can win [the great metaphor of the Colosseum Gladiators as Our Life eh]

there is no point looking for a leader for R3, R3 is now an alien fantasy; moreover any Christian would last but a minute in the Aunt Arena ... there is no future only loot


these are real people doing something real

how could we share our cds and hard drives in a similar mutual action? how could we enable poetry and drama and real art to escape to the air?

[MrGongGong]

That from a Sibelius enthusiast - I'm shocked. Shocked.

Music is a very wide ocean (with Swans?)