Latest RAJARs

[french frank]

The BBC has a problem whatever the causes it seems to me.

I have put it to the BBC endlessly (oh, yes I have ) that they are part of the problem and ought to help solve it. They relentlessly push the popular (okay so far) while suppressing the 'worthy' entirely or relegating it to the margins where only the 'narrow' enthusiasts will come across it, instead of keeping it in the mainstream, even if rather less of it than in past years. Anything in the mainstream has to be given the special BBC treatment aimed at people who aren't remotely interested and not appealing to those who are interested.

Keep it simple, stupid. Put a one-hour recital on once a week on BBC Four at a time when people are watching BBC Four. Many will turn it off, but the valuable few just might develop an interest. But even that seems too much to ask.

Meant to add: R3's contribution to BBC Music Day this year is the BBC Singers going around singing (I think) with various choirs. No details of music given.

BBC Radio 3 will be following the BBC Singers, broadcasting updates across the day as they entertain passengers on the Euston to Birmingham train, join with Workplace Choirs, and perform at New Street Station. In the evening, The Verb will be broadcasting from Contains Strong Language - a season of poetry and performance in Hull.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Meant to add: R3's contribution to BBC Music Day this year is the BBC Singers going around singing (I think) with various choirs. No details of music given.

BBC Radio 3 will be following the BBC Singers, broadcasting updates across the day as they entertain passengers on the Euston to Birmingham train, join with Workplace Choirs, and perform at New Street Station. In the evening, The Verb will be broadcasting from Contains Strong Language - a season of poetry and performance in Hull.

Has the new director of the BBCS had much effect yet? Otherwise this is cruel - its possible they might turn up on an innocent public - it could be you or me - in circumstances where they have limited options to get away.

[Serial_Apologist]

I don't believe this is a straightforward demographic or age related issue either, or if it is then it's the other way round from what popular perception would suggest?

Oh I am afraid I do - one reason being that that very switch in my case is to alternative sources informed by past standards of Radio 3 that facilitated my exposure to them - so it is in part an age demographic thing, since those younger than a certain age will have enjoyed none of my experience. Where will they get that from, now? - unless you go the way of thinking that says the internet offers so much more variety to choose from?

[french frank]

Oh I am afraid I do - one reason being that that very switch in my case is to alternative sources informed by past standards of Radio 3 that facilitated my exposure to them - so it is in part an age demographic thing, since those younger than a certain age will have enjoyed none of my experience. Where will they get that from, now? - unless you go the way of thinking that says the internet offers so much more variety to choose from?

The problem is that when choice is increased, people choose what they know and like. You have to in some sense 'force' culture on people - knowing full well that the majority will exercise their choice and go elsewhere. That is what the BBC won't risk.

[Lat-Literal]

Several points there I would take issue with. These reports usually only take a short term view of the latest figures. The Today programme had its lowest reach for two years, but the latest figure is pretty much what it was for quite a long time before that. And it is an accepted fact that at some times people are more anxious to tune in to the news than at others. It's quite acceptable (to me, anyway) to suggest that the 'news aspect' of people's lives has calmed down since … 2016.

Breakfast is not 'better' than the rest of R3. Essential Classics has been having more listeners, though partly because, being a 3-hour programme, its listening figures are the aggregate number from 9am until midday. And R3 has a smaller percentage of listeners who are rushing off to work first thing and switching off at 8.30 or so.

This quarter is also the one where the recalculated population figures are used. So a programme which had a stable 100k reach for the two consecutive quarters will show a slight drop in Q2 because the reach calculation is based on the higher population figure.

"Recalculated population figures" - wow and how extraordinary. By 2022, the Council Tax bands will have been the same for an equivalent period to that from the start of WW1 to the end of WW2. Many a one bedroom shed has been turned into an eight bedroom mansion paying the rate of a one bedroom shed.

What you say about the news may be true. However, there is a longer term trend of the Brexit discussions becoming unintelligible to elected representatives "so how are the general public to understand it" - even I have given up on following that one; fake news; and especially perhaps alarmism to fill up space.

I'm surprised by what you say about "Essential Classics" but that is men, not youths, by default. They don't in the main want to listen to Clara Amfo, Ken Bruce, Woman's Hour, an R4E detective series from 1953 or, god forbid, Adrian Chiles and at most will be inclined to having only short bursts of Lauren Laverne.

[french frank]

I'm surprised by what you say about "Essential Classics" but that is men, not youths, by default.

By 'men' do you mean 'adults'? Not sure of the latest figure, but R3's audience splits roughly 54% men, 46% women - much more equal than, e.g. Five Live.

[Lat-Literal]

By 'men' do you mean 'adults'? Not sure of the latest figure, but R3's audience splits roughly 54% men, 46% women - much more equal than, e.g. Five Live.

I meant men as a guesstimate on the reasons for increasing figures in that particular time slot. Almost certainly white men as the content has changed to embrace diversity elsewhere. My guess is that the female/male split in the mornings (that way round) is 70/30 on most stations partly due to who is at home and partly due to who and what is on the BBC. Ken Bruce is the "housewives' choice", Clara Amfo won't be drawing in 32 or 52 year old males in droves, Woman's Hour has a mainly female audience, Chiles is popular with himself etc. Most of the taxi drivers I have encountered - all from other countries, all males in the age group quoted - are listening to Billy Joel on Magic or Smooth, not knowing who Billy Joel is. Even some of those might well be on Essential Classics if they knew that a Radio 3 existed - especially the ones, several, who have told me that they don't like western pop culture.

[oddoneout]

Oh I am afraid I do - one reason being that that very switch in my case is to alternative sources informed by past standards of Radio 3 that facilitated my exposure to them - so it is in part an age demographic thing, since those younger than a certain age will have enjoyed none of my experience. Where will they get that from, now? - unless you go the way of thinking that says the internet offers so much more variety to choose from?

I was meaning that if the perception of the R3 audience is of an old(er), set-in their-ways, resistant to change and modern technology audience, then the use of such things as online music sources would not be expected, or not to any great degree. I'm not convinced by that view and if the BBC is tending to assume that its older/core R3 audience won't seek alternatives because of such a perception then it's adding to its difficulties. I accept your point about the past experience link to age related demographics, but I don't think it's the whole story. As with any other interest the natural inclination is to search for more of what one is interested in; even if R3 today was more like it was in years past that would surely still be the case, with the internet offering the option to be more specific in one's listening if that is what is desired and, importantly, independent of R3 output. The more people get used to using the alternatives, I suspect the less likely it is that they would increase their R3 listening even if the quality of that output improved significantly - breaking the habit as previously mentioned.

[Lat-Literal]

The Guardian reports that from 2019 the main daytime line up on 6 Music will be Lauren Laverne (Breakfast from Morning), Mary Anne Hobbs (Morning from Weekend Breakfast), Shaun Keaveny (Afternoon from Breakfast) and Steve Lamacq (Drivetime unchanged). Radcliffe and Maconie will move from Afternoon to Weekend Breakfast. Furthermore, that the average age of 6 Music presenters is 52. There is only one presenter who is under 40 - Tom Ravenscroft, son of John Peel, 38. The music mix is not hugely changed since 6 Music was launched some sixteen years ago in 2002 to maintain the audience figures, and it also reflects what was the late evening and night output of Radio 1 during the 1980s and 1990s. Ethnic diversity is minimal. The morning slot across the BBC network is now mainly with women at the helm (1, 4, 6). Ken Bruce, at 67, remains the housewives choice on 2 although ultimately that programme is likely to have a full time woman presenter as indicated by the stand ins : the idea of the comfortable senior male is being pensioned off into BBC local radio, while Adrian Chiles, 51, presents a mixture of news and sport on 5 and there is generally a play on 4E. R3 might perhaps look at where 6 Music could be in ten years time, if it exists, and where current 40-60 year olds will be going. That does not necessarily mean exclusively men but beyond the realm of sport morning "cultural" programmes are increasingly women orientated.

(In my humble opinion, the shift is in any case a backwards step from E-C-B-C on a scale of A-E in daytime order to C-D-E-C : I don't mind Laverne; I'm not a big fan of Keaveny)

[Andrew Slater]

Updated reach graph:

[french frank]

Thanks, Andrew. So the blue line shows the latest reach …

I was meaning that if the perception of the R3 audience is of an old(er), set-in their-ways, resistant to change and modern technology audience, then the use of such things as online music sources would not be expected, or not to any great degree.

RW said several years ago that the R3 audience was well up with the technology. ABs are likely to have computers, smartphones &c, and if they want digital radios with the capability of getting internet stations too, they can afford them. So they will have other music sources (as well as have big CD collections). Whether they use streaming services to the same extent, I don't know. I don't, but I know about them and could use them if I wanted to. Oh, yes I could!!!

[Zucchini]

I found James Purnell's speech to the EBU a couple of months ago quite interesting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2018/james-purnell-ebu

[Zucchini]

Thanks, Andrew. So the blue line shows the latest reach …

Same as usual for 4 of 5 Q2s. So what's the for?

[french frank]

Same as usual for 4 of 5 Q2s. So what's the for?

Volatile though they are, I'd say the trend is lightly down-ish over the past five years, rather than level or up - wouldn't you? So rather than

[DracoM]

Mortality among listeners, or they just don't like what R3 is doing, and were hoping for someone listening to why, and then gave up when they realised no-one actually was listening, shrugged, defected?