Latest RAJARs

[french frank]

Getting back to Radio 3, I've just read this on Lebrecht's blog - a response from the BBC to NL's usual knocking (this time at Tony Hall and an unnamed civil servant who it seems was put in charge of something or other - Norm doesn't even mention his name now, apparently:

"A BBC Spokesperson said: “We always fluctuate around the 2 million mark – we are delighted that audiences are listening longer with the highest figures in 2 years at 6hrs and 34m this quarter, along with an increased share of 1.2% – this is in line with our strategy to encourage audiences to take time out to listen to full-length classical concert broadcasts and slow radio.”

Not all of this is believable It's PR spin, which is disappointing.

[cloughie]

Getting back to Radio 3, I've just read this on Lebrecht's blog - a response from the BBC to NL's usual knocking (this time at Tony Hall and an unnamed civil servant who it seems was put in charge of something or other - Norm doesn't even mention his name now, apparently:

"A BBC Spokesperson said: “We always fluctuate around the 2 million mark – we are delighted that audiences are listening longer with the highest figures in 2 years at 6hrs and 34m this quarter, along with an increased share of 1.2% – this is in line with our strategy to encourage audiences to take time out to listen to full-length classical concert broadcasts and slow radio.”

Not all of this is believable It's PR spin, which is disappointing.

I’d vote for more slow radio in the mornings! Strange that they get these views and figures together - I’ve never been asked, nor have I received replies to my unrequested views.

[Lat-Literal]

Getting back to Radio 3, I've just read this on Lebrecht's blog - a response from the BBC to NL's usual knocking (this time at Tony Hall and an unnamed civil servant who it seems was put in charge of something or other - Norm doesn't even mention his name now, apparently:

"A BBC Spokesperson said: “We always fluctuate around the 2 million mark – we are delighted that audiences are listening longer with the highest figures in 2 years at 6hrs and 34m this quarter, along with an increased share of 1.2% – this is in line with our strategy to encourage audiences to take time out to listen to full-length classical concert broadcasts and slow radio.”

Not all of this is believable It's PR spin, which is disappointing.

Well, it is relevant to Radio 3 if you were to consider a new Radio 2/3 Extra which is what I propose for the reasons previously outlined. It is in my view the only way to bump up the figures for "3" as a brand and it would simultaneously enable Radio 3 to be what people here would prefer it to be. Both are preferable to an increasingly unpopular popularisation which ultimately leads to a political decision recommending its demise. Additional money would not be available. It therefore needs to be found from somewhere else. I am saying that should come from a shift from BBC local radio to BBC regional radio. But the concept of a 2/3 Extra also needs to be clear. It cannot just be a rerun of Classic FM. What is needed is a review of what is best placed where in a 1967 style revamp. This in turn requires an adequate understanding of both the roots of what has happened vis a vis R1, R2, 6M and commercial radio and more recent changes to the content there and the listenership by generational background and as it ages. It takes less time, actually, to write up the last 42 years as it does the previous 21 for pretty obvious reasons. Contrary to most aspects of life, things have moved more slowly at least in terms of real substance and reactions to them have been slower still.

[Lat-Literal]

1977 Onwards

By the mid to late 1980s, Capital Radio and other ILR stations had lost their way. The brand of American FM radio had proven transitory. So too had its music although it would continue to have long lasting appeal to those who "were there". Ironically this coincided with a massive expansion of local commercial radio which continued mainly for political reasons into the 1990s. In 1990 the Broadcasting Act partially addressed this matter by turning the IBA into the lighter touch regulator "The Radio Authority". Following this change, commercial radio didn't quite lose its peculiar historical connection with localism but that was less transparent, as indeed it is today, and radio was opened up for national commercial radio stations including the so called genre based. The beginnings of the formula of narrow playlists were earlier but they took off here. BBC local radio stations had never achieved high audiences. There was some experimentation with it in the late 1980s and beyond in London with varying degrees of success. But ultimately by this century it was more obviously branded so that there was a similar style from station to station. It has a place in the future but not necessarily beyond regionalism when the characteristics of localism are so diluted in its current form.

In contrast, Radio 1 began to pick up comparatively in the late 1970s and especially the 1980s. This was enabled by two distinct changes in popular music which in turn permitted it to draw upon much earlier remits. First, 1977 was Year Zero. Punk rock which never managed to hugely trouble the singles chart was so culturally significant on the fringes in sweeping out the old that there was suddenly scope for a form of broadcasting that was oppositional to the mainstream. John Peel's apparent volte face in accommodating the new movement was essentially "The Perfumed Garden" turned on its head after an absence of many years. Secondly, the New Romantics and similar types provided a means for mainstream Radio 1 to engage with a new generation of children to an extent that it hadn't been able to do in nearly a decade. The even better news for the station was that such acts were not of such limited appeal in terms of age as the previous set had mostly been. They were also fashionable among some who were in their late teens and early twenties. Age was elongated at this point.

If one were to take the age of 11 as a starting point for popular music interests, then no one alive who was born after WW2 was not a part of the teenage invention. Consequently, you would have to be either older than 74 or an out and out classicist not to have some sort of very nuanced taste or viewpoint on that music. That, though, is only up to a certain time. Certainly it applies to the late 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s and the early 1980s and to a lesser extent the late 1980s and the early to mid 1990s when the momentum began to slow down. Today, the 70 something rock n roller would not necessarily have "got" flower power. The 60 something hippy would not necessarily have "got" the Clash. And the 50 something who loved Emerson Lake and Palmer would not necessarily have been overly enamoured by Adam and the Ants. This is to describe the position on a simplistic decade by decade basis when in truth each could be sub-divided into three parts. There are two aspects here which are counter-intuitive. One, if punk rock was intended to shake up the supposedly bland old order as it proclaimed, what it led to ironically in the medium term was less diversity than more diversity both in the mainstream and on the fringes, less of a sense of popular music as a progression, and less speed in change so that future generations would in truth increasingly blend. Two, the huge range of commercial stations which were subsequently to emerge were not at all nuanced in their playlists even though they were intended to be targeted to audience. The 60s. The 70s. Gold. Few ever really thought in such terms. It was far more tribal. By rights, the mix of things they have provided should not have worked for anyone. Their foundations have been built on an assumption of a mellowing nostalgia for the times.

[Lat-Literal]

Towards the Future

The situation described here is transitory. Nostalgia only lasts as long as the relevant generations are alive. The people on this forum who are in their 50s and show preferences either for prog rock or punk rock are sufficiently interested in music not to have let nostalgia get in its way. They have also broadened out musically in some respects via Q and other magazines from the 1990s onwards which provided further opportunities to give other musical forms another try. But they are the youngest people on this cusp of the mid to late 1970s. It all tottered along happily until 1995 or 1996 with post punk indie and pop and what would be heard as an updated form of rock all crossing over their supposed ongoing divisions. By the time he got to 60, John Peel could probably still say what he wasn't but it was harder for him to say what he was in such crystal clear terms. From Virgin onto Absolute, at XFM and so on, there was or is a remit of bringing a certain sort of music to the masses rather than just music from the old days. Some have implied rock. Others have implied post punk indie or at least what is now indie style rock. These rely in many ways on something close to the opposite of nostalgia. They expect listeners not to have had a first hand knowledge of the finer distinctions because they were not alive to know them. Bung anything in that could seem approximately similar and it works for them even if there was no compatibility at the time.

What all this ignores is that this to put it in its modern context is rock and rock became a dinosaur long before the start of this century. You can link up Led Zeppelin from 1970 with the Sex Pistols in 1977 or Nirvana, Oasis and Green Day in the 1990s on a whim for all you like. But look at those years. The 11 year old in 1995 is now 35. The one in 1970 is now 60. And everyone knows that the guitar based juggernaut was seemingly against the odds entirely blown apart. By what? Largely by what it thought in 1967 and in 1975 and in 1977 it was killing off. Pop music. The Spice Girls. Take That. And all of the acts to emerge from an update of Opportunity Knocks. Not, it has to be said, the stuff of Smooth or Mellow Magic which see themselves as far more sophisticated by taking out all of the rock and the childlike stuff and operating for those who are nostalgic for a smooch. The new order came out of the rise of dance music in the late 1980s and to some extent the softer end of hip-hop. It noted that old soul had long been replaced by these things via disco and declared unknowingly that rock music was male and white. The new pop music had to emerge in a global environment where genders were equally important and especially where multiculturalism was all important. There has been minimal evolution of it in the past 20 odd years because it is the new world and everything before it is another world. It might as well not have existed. You will know this if you are a middle aged parent who enjoys the music your children like because they are your children. Radio 2 knows it. Radio 1 knows it even more. And the 19 year old bloke in his bedroom listening to 6 Music is best left to his own distant devices. If he mixed more, he'd team up with real folk on the street and start listening with them to 1 Extra.

Regrettably, there is no way on earth that 6 Music is a stepping stone today between Radio 1 and Radio 2. It may have been when it was conceived at the tail end of John Peel. If so, it would have marked a transition from 13 to 19 or 23 before parenthood at 28 or 30. The sort of cohorts that are seriously being mentioned now by the BBC are nothing less than absolutely ridiculous. You get a few nods here and there. Radio 2 will still do one programme on each of the 1960s, the 1970s and the 1980s. 6 Music will dip its toes into the world of dance or hip hop but it will rarely linger. Commercial stations are like a commercial anything else. Here today. Gone tomorrow. Shifting as quickly as it takes for one bunch to die off and the next one to discover dating. The figures may for a while be so glowing that one fears for the BBC as our national broadcaster. The hoodwinking nature of their products - they can convince people to believe that their version of life was always their version of life when it was not - is most clearly revealed by the swaths who abandon radio entirely and instead go off to do their own more meaningful music thing. 6 Music has ten years. After that, it may need reinvention. I won't like it but I can see that it is time limited. Radio 1 and Radio 2 will easily survive. Going with the slow, slow, zeitgeist as they do. Living in the real world. Increasingly unlistenable for people like me but what the hell. They will only noticeably change musically every 25 years. Radio 2/3 - light classics, music from the movies, even a bit of Sinatra - it's as sound as a pound. Not subject to the whims of what was the half century of rock. Even slower and more stable than the pop things everyone else is perhaps wanting. It's a great business plan and as we are all are acutely aware, nothing else matters now.

[antongould]

#RajarsDay - has Skellers reached me ....... ?????

[french frank]

#RajarsDay - has Skellers reached me ....... ?????

Just studying - looks as if all listening is up - R3 has at last regained its 2m - 2.040m. Just off to gym - will think on

[french frank]

<sigh> Well, here we go:

Radio 3 has finished a woeful year, 2018/19, with a slightly improved quarterly reach which slides in at just under the historical average. It should be noted, however, that Q4 of the financial year (Jan-Mar) has, historically, been marginally the best quarter seasonally: next quarter will be the testing one.

As usual, we don’t have many figures to go on, but as far as I can see the yearly average (that is, the weekly averages, averaged over the year) was the second lowest ‘ever’*, and the percentage reach the lowest 'ever'* – indicating that Radio 3’s reach hasn’t been increasing in line with the population increase. The trend is steadily downwards. But, with this quarter managing to edge up over the 2m mark, management will be mopping the collective brow.

The Breakfast figure was, in contrast, pretty good, though the sample, when it drills down to programme level, is very small and fluctuations up and down aren’t necessarily significant. But, on the surface, reach shows no sign of collapsing in spite of reservations about presenters.

We have no figures at all - and can only suppose - that Essential Classics continues triumphantly as the programme with the highest reach. But since ‘dumbing down’ is done with the principle aim of getting more listeners, we can’t be surprised if, on this level, the ‘dumbest’ programmes get the most listeners.

*'Ever', as ever, means since comparable records began.

[DracoM]

Mercilessly succinct!
Thx.

[antongould]

Mercilessly succinct!
Thx.

Indeed many thanks

[kernelbogey]

Posting this here in default of a better home.

The Guardian reports that listeners who own smart speakers (apparently 26% of homes) are increasingly choosing non-familiar stations, partly because such devices require you to choose which station you want.

A BBC person said '...it was no longer chasing traditional radio listening figures and was instead prioritising investment in podcasts via its BBC Sounds app to appeal to younger listeners.'

[Anastasius]

Posting this here in default of a better home.

The Guardian reports that listeners who own smart speakers (apparently 26% of homes) are increasingly choosing non-familiar stations, partly because such devices require you to choose which station you want.

A BBC person said '...it was no longer chasing traditional radio listening figures and was instead prioritising investment in podcasts via its BBC Sounds app to appeal to younger listeners.'

Perfect...just perfect. So we can expect more 'Raindrops keep falling on my head' on R3 then

[LMcD]

Reach just over 2 million - slightly down on the quarter but up 6.3% on the year. Hours up 14.8% on the year.

[doversoul1]

Anything Radio 3 can learn from this?

Zoe Ball’s BBC Radio 2 breakfast show sheds 780,000 listeners

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/aug/01/zoe-ball-bbc-radio-2-breakfast-show-loses-listeners

[Sir Velo]

Anything Radio 3 can learn from this?

Zoe Ball’s BBC Radio 2 breakfast show sheds 780,000 listeners
https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...oses-listeners

What, how to shed 780,000 listeners you mean?

I think R3 is doing pretty nicely without any help as it is.