The Lure of Classic FM

[doversoul1]

"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. ........ "

Whilst I would obviously be alone in disagreeing with the first part, surely there may be others who don't support the second ...... ?????

What better than this to tell that the author has never listen to the programme? For that matter maybe s/he has never listened to Radio 3.

[french frank]

Many thanks for the link - I think this is an excellent article. I'm one of the 64,000, I guess, inasmuch as I listen to 'Today' for a while - an increasingly short while as time passes - before retuning to Radio 3. If I want to follow up any news stories that feature in the Radio 3 news summaries I'll visit the BBC News website.

Strange article with an even stranger headline: "Radio 3 is winning the breakfast battle with Radio 4 – but the war is not won". What does it mean, Winning the breakfast battle? Last quarter R3 636,000, R4 6.816 million.

In fact, Essential Classics is pretty much what it is in order to stop Breakfast listeners switching to Radio 4 at 9am.

Both these articles show how a journalist can express an entirely personal, non critical, view of what they like or dislike and it creates the impression that they are stating some sort of truth. We may agree with some of it and disagree with another bit, but as often as not we're just chipping in our two penn'orth of what we like and dislike.

[LMcD]

I take 'winning the breakfast battle' simply to mean that a certain number of disaffected Radio 4 listeners, of whom I am one, may be switching to Radio 3 over the breakfast period. 'Breakfast' satisfies my musical needs over that period, but Essential Classics fails to do so after 9.00 a.m. when I'm ready for more nutritious fare. Between 0630 and 0900 both content and presentation are right for me. After 0900, neither floats my boat, as they say.

[french frank]

I take 'winning the breakfast battle' simply to mean that a certain number of disaffected Radio 4 listeners, of whom I am one, may be switching to Radio 3 over the breakfast period.

Yes, but how many disaffected Radio 3 listeners are switching to Radio 4 over the breakfast period? There need to be more listeners switching from R4 to R3 to justify saying that R3 is 'winning the war'. As usual, journalists read a hefty tome into the latest set of figures, but given that the RAJAR sample turns up a weekly average of c. 35 Breakfast listeners each quarter in total, it's pretty dodgy to extrapolate anything too detailed with much certainty.

[oddoneout]

I know which one I'd be listening to if I were in need of a Stena Stairlift!

"Stena stairlifts take you further"

[oddoneout]

"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. ........ "

Whilst I would obviously be alone in disagreeing with the first part, surely there may be others who don't support the second ...... ?????

Tsk Tsk, you know you're not.

[Stanfordian]

"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. ........ "

Whilst I would obviously be alone in disagreeing with the first part, surely there may be others who don't support the second ...... ?????

It's hard to know if you are referring to R3 or CFM!

[antongould]

It's hard to know if you are referring to R3 or CFM!

As the article quoted from was about R3 that might provide a clue ........

[Old Grumpy]

"Stena stairlifts take you further"

Both competing for a market from a similar demographic, I would have thought!

[french frank]

As for "Ditto Composer of the Week, which generally packages Wikipedia-level info about dead composers. ........ ", I would be more inclined to ask the writer what he would expect. The vast majority of "classical" composers are dead (they are also white and male), so 'generally' that would be 'expected' - even if one would prefer a more disproportionate percentage of living composers.

As for 'Wikipedia-level', while often very unreliable for a number of reasons, Wikipedia also has articles which are very well-informed and properly referenced, written by people with a good deal of knowledge. But 'Wikipedia-level' is slightly different from 'Wikipedia'. CotW does have specialist academics as guests quite frequently. When the CotW production staff provide the content, it could well be 'Wikipedia-level'. It would still be quite illuminating for a large part of the audience, however well informed they are on the areas of 'classical music' which they themselves have studied. TIMO.

In other words, I could agree with what the writer says, though I feel he betrays a lack of interest in large parts of the CotW coverage and that affects his general attitude towards the programme.

[LMcD]

While I agree with much of what the journalist in question says, I don't share his views on CoTW,
As Old Grumpy says, the two stations are, at least to some extent I would say, chasing the same demographic, and the latter may very well comprise those people who are best equipped, and most likely, to search anywhere and everywhere , on- and offline, anywhere in the world, to find what they're looking for. The world of broadcasting has changed for ever, and every station manager/controller/editor has his or her work cut out if he or she wishes to hang on to his or her existing audience, let alone increase it. Distinctiveness is surely a key objective, and I fear that Radio 3 more often comes across as muddled and unfocused. Mixtape followed immediately by Gurrelieder anyone?

[Old Grumpy]

While I agree with much of what the journalist in question says, I don't share his views on CoTW,
As Old Grumpy says, the two stations are, at least to some extent I would say, chasing the same demographic, and the latter may very well comprise those people who are best equipped, and most likely, to search anywhere and everywhere , on- and offline, anywhere in the world, to find what they're looking for. The world of broadcasting has changed for ever, and every station manager/controller/editor has his or her work cut out if he or she wishes to hang on to his or her existing audience, let alone increase it. Distinctiveness is surely a key objective, and I fear that Radio 3 more often comes across as muddled and unfocused. Mixtape followed immediately by Gurrelieder anyone?

Well, I actually meant Stena and Stannah are chasing the same demographic, hey-ho!

[Conchis]

Objectively speaking, Classic FM is a very poor station indeed.

Really - would you patronise a restaurant that served only hors d'oeuvres?

[french frank]

Really - would you patronise a restaurant that served only hors d'oeuvres?

Well, I might at lunchtime. I often choose a starter and vegetables instead of a main dish Not that that has a lot to do with CFM …

[french frank]

Yet another BBC person to Classic FM. Moira Stuart departs from her Radio 2 programme …