Latest RAJARs

[DracoM]

The completely baffling point about Radio 3 strategy over 20 years is that it's not the jazz, world music, speech programmes &c that put off classical listeners - it's the classical music programmes, the very programmes they would want to be listening to.

Smack on, FF. And that surely is a huge indictment?

[Lat-Literal]

Headline this quarter might be: 'New broom runs out of steam'.

The good news is - that Breakfast had a pretty good weekly average audience (kill-joys might want to express reservations, but far be it from me) at 634k. Listening hours held up fairly well at its usual, not particularly impressive, average, but at least that's better than dropping back. And that's it …

The overall station reach was weak - 1.933m (better than a year ago - but that was horribly weak at 1.884m). The yearly average (i.e. the 4 quarters 2017-18, averaged) was one of the lowest in 20 years.

We, the public, only get a very partial picture and can only theorise on the reality of what's happening. What might be suggested as a possibility is that Radio 3 is falling between two stools - it's not attracting enough new listeners from the so-called 'broader audience' (the 'Classic FM heavy' listener prefers - Classic FM), while the natural Radio 3 listener, or 'Radio 3 heavy' listener is beginning to drift (where? internet radio? streaming services? own CDs?). If anything, this quarter the broader audience seems to have been propping up the station, but that picture may become clearer.

The wider BBC is hostile (apparently) to remedies which would militate against its general 'Maximise the Popular Audience' strategies. Now that digital listening has (marginally) passed analogue, presumably Radio 3 will be allowed to potter along even if the weekly average sinks to 628k - the same as the Asian Network's.

We will never get the big picture from the powers-that-be.

It surely isn't that hard for someone to find 500 people or even 100 people who listen to CFM and ask why they don't listen to Radio 3.

Could it be done via Survey Monkey or similar?

(I'm not sure that it even needs to be a rigorous sample - anything of this nature would give a flavour)

[teamsaint]

We will never get the big picture from the powers-that-be.

It surely isn't that hard for someone to find 500 people or even 100 people who listen to CFM and ask why they don't listen to Radio 3.

Could it be done via Survey Monkey or similar?

(I'm not sure that it even needs to be a rigorous sample - anything of this nature would give a flavour)

I suspect that part of the problem about real transparency from the BBC, is that those in positions to actually do something to produce change are ,understandably, more concerned with maintaining their current role, and looking to move to the next ( well paid) role. Really brave choices probably tend not to be part of the mix in such a situation.

[vinteuil]

Headline this quarter might be: 'New broom runs out of steam'.
.

... the presentation of these figures in a certain newspaper of record makes it sound much more positive -

"BBC listeners are ditching politics for classical music in the morning, according to official figures showing Radio 4’s Today programme losing its audience while the Radio 3 breakfast show soars.
Today has shed 65,000 listeners in a year, with its weekly reach for the first quarter falling to just under 7.07 million.
The audience for Radio 3’s breakfast show rose from 570,000 to 634,000 over the same year-on-year period.... "





.

[french frank]

... the presentation of these figures in a newspaper of record make it sound much more positive -

"BBC listeners are ditching politics for classical music in the morning, according to official figures showing Radio 4’s Today programme losing its audience while the Radio 3 breakfast show soars.
Today has shed 65,000 listeners in a year, with its weekly reach for the first quarter falling to just under 7.07 million.
The audience for Radio 3’s breakfast show rose from 570,000 to 634,000 over the same year-on-year period.... "


.

I suspect that's a rewrite of the BBC press release. I did say the Breakfast figures were not bad. One reservation I had was that looking at all the breakfast show figures published, the majority were down this quarter (R2 was down by over a quarter of a million). Given that the RAJAR sample only identifies about 30 Breakfast listeners, that's a very small sample which can be volatile. The 570k was unusually low, the 634k a bit up on average as a result of sampling variation. Two years ago Breakfast reach was 689k, and the following quarter 651k. Preceding Q1s reach was 644k, 673k, 704k. So we're not really talking about a huge leap in Breakfast listening.

But the major point stands: if Breakfast was regarded as a good figure - how does one explain the station reach being so weak? Which programmes did badly?

[gurnemanz]

Late Junction / Jazz Record Requests / Drama / CE / occasional COTW are regulars.

I used to be totally dependent on R3, but.............no more.

... which just goes to show how tricky it is to please everyone. Over the last 50 years of adult radio listening I have never been anywhere near totally dependent on R3. I rarely listen to Jazz RR, Choral Evensong or Late Junction, only occasionally to radio drama and nearly always to Composer of the Week, followed by Lunchtime Concert (especially song recitals - where else will you find them?) and Afternoon Concert. Also evening concert if I'm at home and if it takes my fancy and if there's nothing worth watching on the telly. I do not now listen before midday. This is a personal preference, because I don't like the presentation style. There are probably plenty of Radio 3 listeners who listen almost exclusively in the morning, because that presentation style is just what they like. For me, it's great as a retired person to have the morning free and available for listening to CDs, reading books and newspaper and doing the cryptic crossword.
On the whole, I'm reasonably happy with the proportion of Radio 3 output that appeals to me and would never expect or want to be totally dependent on it.

[french frank]

We will never get the big picture from the powers-that-be.

It surely isn't that hard for someone to find 500 people or even 100 people who listen to CFM and ask why they don't listen to Radio 3.

Could it be done via Survey Monkey or similar?

(I'm not sure that it even needs to be a rigorous sample - anything of this nature would give a flavour)

We talk about the ClassicFMification of Radio 3, but in fact the two stations are different. But the BBC/R3 totally ignore the aspects which are deliberately most like Classic FM, designed to attract a wider, more casual listenership. Because mornings are the time when most radio listeners tune in, that's the time R3 stands the best chance of getting new listeners. And hard cheese to the existing audience which also wants to tune in in the mornings.

But we know that Classic FM listeners can be attracted to Breakfast and Essential Classics without a survey:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/2019507-Classic-FM-Ads-are-too-depressing

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/1583872-Anyone-moved-from-Classic-FM-to-Radio-3

just as we know what others, apart from forumistas here, think:

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/2566485-to-be-fucked-off-and-actually-really-quite-sad-at-what-has-happened-to-Radio-3

[Bella Kemp]

Well in this household of five R3 is on pretty much all of the day. There's a bit of rebellion at baby grandson's bathtime when he wants C******c F* but it's jolly and In Tune has always featured too much chat anyway. And ratings take a dip for the Sunday Play which I never miss but everyone else does. For all its faults it really is an extraordinarily wonderful station.

[doversoul1]

Has this been posted somewhere? (if it has, please delete this post)

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/may/17/radio-3-is-winning-the-breakfast-battle-with-radio-4-but-the-war-is-not-won

One thing I do like about the breakfast show on Radio 3 is that it plays the odd bit of jazz, numbers from musicals, French chanson – a splendid burst of Jacques Brel this morning – and popular song. We even had some George Formby last week. The more variety, the merrier.

Some like it hot… then this;

Much of the rest of the schedule is lacklustre. Essential Classics, between 9am and noon, is dire: terrible, cliched little featurettes; mindless broadcasting of listeners’ emails and tweets; a predictable roster of music. Ditto Composer of the Week, which generally packages Wikipedia-level info about dead composers.

Record Review, which occupies close to four energised hours on Saturday mornings, should be the template for all Radio 3 programmes: intelligent, incisive commentary with no talking down to listeners. Too much of the schedule feels as though it is going through the motions.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I've just posted the link to the same article on the Breakfast strand and was about to post it here. It covers much of Radio Three output and echoes , in its scathing critique of Essential Classics and praise for Record Review quite a bit of forumite opinion . Good to see an intelligent piece on Radio Three - it's well worth reading .

[french frank]

Record Review, which occupies close to four energised hours on Saturday mornings, should be the template for all Radio 3 programmes: intelligent, incisive commentary with no talking down to listeners. Too much of the schedule feels as though it is going through the motions.[/I]

Shouldn't pick out one comment and ignore the rest , so Breakfast - disagree; Ess. Cla. - agree; CotW - disagree; Rec. Rev. - agree.

On the whole, this is a journalist who doesn't understand the listening figures. Stations don't 'gain' and 'lose' listeners in significant numbers from one quarter to the next. Quarterly figures are calculations from the changing samples. What R3 'gains' one quarter it 'loses' the next. So what? Continuing trends matter, not one quarter in isolation.

It would be sad if Breakfast was appealing to R4 listeners but not R3 listeners, but I think fairly philosophically that whereas I don't really understand why Breakfast can't play about 12 pieces, all from the classical canon (familiar or, preferably, seldom heard), it's going to cater for people who are fed up with Today or with Classic FM's commercials rather than for me - an erstwhile regular morning listener.

We don't have many RAJAR figures for the pre-Breakfast era and what we have is not strictly comparable because of changes in programme length and timing. But look at what we do have (all thousands):

2005: 836, 707, 779, 799
2006: 839, 752, 768, 833
2007:765, 727

[The latest 2018 figure: 634k]

These were not negligible figures and although one can't say, "All these figures are higher than what we have now," one also can't say, "What Breakfast is getting now is better than what Morning on 3 got."

We might say that R3 is providing an alternative for R4 and CFM listeners, but no alternative is provided for R3 listeners who dislike the changes.

Stephen Moss is the man who once wrote (of Wright's 2007 changes): "[I]t's the Alps and it really ought to be the Himalayas. Radio 3 remains an admirable station, but it could be an extraordinary, no-holds-barred station that is so ambitious and demanding it gives you a headache. That's the sort of station I want, and unfortunately this ill-judged toying with the schedule is a step down the mountainside."

He didn't like CotW even then. But going back to the discussion we had a short while ago about radio as a 'shared experience', I see he also wrote: "Maybe the Radio 3 panjandrums would argue that in this "listen on demand" era, communality either no longer exists or is no longer important. But it is for me. I don't want to listen through my computer on headphones to a concert broadcast a week ago; I want to share the moment."

[Ein Heldenleben]

Moss was harsh on COTW - it goes way past Wikipedia . I'm usually impressed by the quality of experts they bring in on the more recondite composers. Always well scripted as well whereas no one would say that about the average wiki -entry.

[DracoM]

Himalayas>Alps>Molehills

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Himalayas>Alps>Molehills

>Potholes

[Constantbee]

Graph of 'reach' over the past 5 years, as instantaneous quarter (blue) and averaged (to smooth the volatility) over 4 quarters (green) and 20 quarters (red):

Thanks for this. I'm curious about the seasonal peaks in Q1 for 2013, 2014 and 2015. If I understand this correctly Q1 must be the winter quarter, so that would be January to March, then. The trend changes in 2016, though. We see the same rise but continuing into Q2, so we might be seeing the continuation of a seasonal effect. Then the peaks become more frequent. You'd can't say a lot without a closer look at the data, but I would like to know what happened in 2016. A possible explanation might be a move away from live listening to 'listen again'. Competition with Cfm is an obvious explanation, but then a lot of forumites are actually going over - at least temporarily - to foreign based serious music stations, like France Musique, so there is competition from elsewhere.

Don't know a lot about RAJAR figures, but are they national or global these days?