Saturday morning success!

[french frank]

where is the evidence that 45% more people are listening to Service rather than Record Review at the same time ? He has a good half an hour more time.

This is what I query - what are they comparing? A longer programme (all things being equal!) will attract more listeners; that is, extend a programme by 30 minutes and expect the programme reach to increase. If they are providing some sort of 'average' between the 15-minute segments it won't correspond to programme breaks. Over the 3-month period of the most recent quarter, did the reach gradually increase - or decrease - or remain stable? Were the comparisons made at randome selected moments? How did new listeners learn about the new programmes - were they trailed on other BBC services? If not, how did they hear about them and be interested enough to listen and discover - oh, joy!

[AuntDaisy]

This is what I query - what are they comparing? A longer programme (all things being equal!) will attract more listeners; that is, extend a programme by 30 minutes and expect the programme reach to increase. If they are providing some sort of 'average' between the 15-minute segments it won't correspond to programme breaks. Over the 3-month period of the most recent quarter, did the reach gradually increase - or decrease - or remain stable? Were the comparisons made at randome selected moments? How did new listeners learn about the new programmes - were they trailed on other BBC services? If not, how did they hear about them and be interested enough to listen and discover - oh, joy!

... and did the figures include SOUNDS information? (Where listeners are forced to register & login.)

[french frank]

... and did the figures include SOUNDS information? (Where listeners are forced to register & login.)

Not sure exactly what it includes. But here's more coverage which, as it has the same info as a previous one (Tom Service and Jools Holland), would indicate that the ultimate source is an (as yet unpublished?) press release from Radio 3.

https://www.colinscolumn.com/bumper-rajar-results-for-bbc-radio-3-after-a-record-breaking-summer-of-music/

[AuntDaisy]

Not sure exactly what it includes. But here's more coverage which, as it has the same info as a previous one (Tom Service and Jools Holland), would indicate that the ultimate source is an (as yet unpublished?) press release from Radio 3.
...

Thanks.
Instead of champagne corks, will there be much presenter wailing & gnashing of teeth if the next quarter's figures are not quite as rosy?
The law of averages & "the value of investments can go down as well as up" being what they are.

[french frank]

Instead of champagne corks, will there be much presenter wailing & gnashing of teeth if the next quarter's figures are not quite as rosy?.

No. Standard procedure would be that the figures are reported without comment. I think Sounds live listening is included but not catch-up but I'm not sure about that. Andrew may have discovered something. Anything published in the general press will report the BBC take, as in their press release

Just found`: "Only live listening is measured."

[Ein Heldenleben]

No. Standard procedure would be that the figures are reported without comment. I think Sounds live listening is included but not catch-up but I'm not sure about that. Andrew may have discovered something. Anything published in the general press will report the BBC take, as in their press release

Just found`: "Only live listening is measured."

I wouldn’t mind betting that the Sounds figures for the Proms will be very substantial indeed. I think Barbs has done a splendid job bumping them up single-handedly.

[french frank]

I wouldn’t mind betting that the Sounds figures for the Proms will be very substantial indeed. I think Barbs has done a splendid job bumping them up single-handedly.

While still keeping up with forum business!

[french frank]

But all of this shows how useless it has been ever to 'complain'. Radio 3 has its objectives, and since they always clash with what we (here) want, we might as well save our breath. They don't care.

[LMcD]

Briefly popped R3 on while making a coffee - Georgia Mann had clearly had too much caffeine this moring...
Lovely bit of Warlock to follow though.



I might quibble about that... How far back do the figures go? Do they include the Thrid Programme?

Well, you can't really accuse her of false modesty.

[Quarky]

"New programmes from April 2024 include Music Map with Sara Mohr-Pietsch; a daily jazz show ‘Round Midnight with Soweto Kinch;"

I'm glad Soweto Kinch gets a mention. His is a difficut path to tread between various listening factions. SM-P is a personal favourite of mine.

If Sam Jackson is still looking around for ideas for new programmes, i would recommend a programme, perhaps in the same category as New Generation Artists, "Générations France Musique, le live" broadcast Saturday Afternoons.

[french frank]

I might quibble about that... How far back do the figures go? Do they include the Third Programme?

Yes, most certainly. Don't forget that the Third was broadcast for restricted hours. On Fri 11 Dec 1964, it started broadcasting at 19.30 and finished at 23.20, and included a mixture of music and speech programmes. Few programmes lasted longer than an hour. In those days you studied the Radio Times and tuned in for the programme that interested you. Listening was 'selective' and 'attentive'. The earliest Rajar figures I have are for Q1 1995 (controller Nick Kenyon). Reach was then 2.401m and hours per listener (weekly) 3.2.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedules/service_third_programme/1964-12-11

[smittims]

For me, this is all about 'how to lie with statistics'. He hasn't proved that classical music reaches a whole new audience, because his new R3 is playing less classical music . If he really cared about classical music he'd be playing more,and complete works too. Radio 3 was never meant to have a huge audience; that's not supposed to be what it's about. Otherwise, just broadcast live sex all day and they'd have an even bigger audience.

[french frank]

Enfin, n'exagérons pas, mon brave. Zoe Ball's Breakfast and the Archers at 19.00 - job done!

[oddoneout]

Yes, most certainly. Don't forget that the Third was broadcast for restricted hours. On Fri 11 Dec 1964, it started broadcasting at 19.30 and finished at 23.20, and included a mixture of music and speech programmes. Few programmes lasted longer than an hour. In those days you studied the Radio Times and tuned in for the programme that interested you. Listening was 'selective' and 'attentive'. The earliest Rajar figures I have are for Q1 1995 (controller Nick Kenyon). Reach was then 2.401m and hours per listener (weekly) 3.2.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedule...mme/1964-12-11

And for most of its life it was indeed about listening, not just having the radio on.

[AuntDaisy]

Yes, most certainly. Don't forget that the Third was broadcast for restricted hours. On Fri 11 Dec 1964, it started broadcasting at 19.30 and finished at 23.20, and included a mixture of music and speech programmes. Few programmes lasted longer than an hour. In those days you studied the Radio Times and tuned in for the programme that interested you. Listening was 'selective' and 'attentive'. The earliest Rajar figures I have are for Q1 1995 (controller Nick Kenyon). Reach was then 2.401m and hours per listener (weekly) 3.2.

https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/schedule...mme/1964-12-11

Thanks for that, French Frank. (& for correcting Thrid - too much Burkiss Way).

To quote from Humphrey Carpenter's "The Envy of the World", p 48, 116, 294, 345 & 356.

Research into the size, nature and tastes of the Third's audience was now being carried out. The Listener Research Department discovered that, while the initial publicity for the Third had persuaded more than ten per cent of the listening population to sample it, by the end of three months this number had reduced to six per cent; meanwhile the Home Service attracted forty per cent and the Light Programme fifty-four. By Christmas 1946, the average Third Programme broadcast was being heard by about 700,000 people at any one time - though more than one and a half million were tuning in during the evening.

Between 1948 and 1951 the average hours per adult per week had diminished from nine and a half to seven and a half, for no discernible reason:

Indeed Radio 3 benefited from this merger. Five months later Hearst was able to report 'an increase in the R3 audience and a sharp decline in R4's' on Saturday afternoons. Another combining of the two networks, on Tuesday evenings, began in March 1975, and proved equally beneficial, Radio 3 achieving up to 850,000 listeners. This was for a Viennese-style concert. Yet it was noted that early music was now getting extremely high audience figures too. Robert Ponsonby observed that more people had been listening to Byrd, Palestrina and Gibbons than to The Ring, Die Fledermaus and The Magic Flute, and remarked that a large number could now be relied on for 'Lassus; Josquin; and even Dufay, with whom David Munrow scored an amazing success in the Albert Hall (of all places!)'.

By the beginning of 1993, the station's success was beyond dispute. The first official listening figures, released in January by... RAJAR..., showed that, in the words of the Independent, 'Classic [FM]'s recipe of classical "hits" is winning an audience as high as 10 per cent [of the population] each week - equivalent to 4.5 million people.' ...
Kenyon told another reporter: 'Radio 3 still has 2.5 million listeners which is more than the audience in this country for live orchestra, opera and chamber music performances.

RAJAR figures in October 1995, ten months into Fairest Isle, reported that Radio 3's catchment pool was back to 2.6 million listeners, much the same as it had been before Classic FM came on the air.