'Delivering Quality First' (DQF) cuts

[antongould]

But then what is it exactly that I am missing? Why do I find this a bigger barrier to listening than even the triviality of it while others seem to welcome it and think it's great?

The cult that is, very scarily, celebrity!

[MarkG]

Does the Wigmore Hall benefit financially from the lunchtime concerts, or just by publicity for the venue? Will it take a hit from the loss of lunchtime concerts?

The WH brochure lists R3 lunchtime concerts up until the end of July next year.

[aeolium]

Will it take a hit from the loss of lunchtime concerts?

I understand the reduction in live or specially recorded lunchtime concerts will be 25% (so just over 1 a week on average). There's no reason to believe that the WH concert will be a casualty, especially as it is such a long-standing R3 tradition - and is repeated at the weekend.

[MarkG]

Thanks. I guess we'll lose some of the live lunchtime concerts from other venues then.

[teamsaint]

the 1 a week gap could be filled by letting student sound engineers cover a concert being held at a university.

great experience for them, (no risk if its not live) and a bit of dosh saved.

Obviously need to be careful about cutting out the pros, as we all got to make a living .

Well, not all of us, but a lot !!

[french frank]

Thanks. I guess we'll lose some of the live lunchtime concerts from other venues then.

If you look at this week's lunchtime concerts from the Clandeboye Music Festival, you'll see that these weren't individual recitals. They were recordings put together from longer evening concerts. I imagine that's the way things will go. Does that matter? I'm not convinced that it does ... I think only Mondays are actually live anyway.

What we do miss is presenters who can add something from their own insights and expertise.

[teamsaint]

If you look at this week's lunchtime concerts from the Clandeboye Music Festival, you'll see that these weren't individual recitals. They were recordings put together from longer evening concerts. I imagine that's the way things will go. Does that matter? I'm not convinced that it does ... I think only Mondays are actually live anyway.

What we do miss is presenters who can add something from their own insights and expertise.

serious question, for the benefit of us relative R3 necomers, this sort of presentation happened when?

[french frank]

serious question, for the benefit of us relative R3 necomers, this sort of presentation happened when?

Heh, heh! I wonder what you call a newcomer? I wouldn't say I was one of the old-timers, perhaps started listening in the late 80s. Names I would think of as 'ordinary' regulars would be Anthony Burton, Chris de Souza, Piers Burton-Page, Humphrey Burton [Enough of the Burtons : - Ed] - and until recently Iain Burnside. George Christie presented a seried about Glyndebourne. And much as I think Donald Macleod is one of the best now, I preferred CotW when people like Roger Nichols and Brendan Carroll were presenting programmes about composers whose work they'd specialised in.

[teamsaint]

Heh, heh! I wonder what you call a newcomer? I wouldn't say I was one of the old-timers, perhaps started listening in the late 80s. Names I would think of as 'ordinary' regulars would be Anthony Burton, Chris de Souza, Piers Burton-Page, Humphrey Burton [Enough of the Burtons : - Ed] - and until recently Iain Burnside. George Christie presented a seried about Glyndebourne. And much as I think Donald Macleod is one of the best now, I preferred CotW when people like Roger Nichols and Brendan Carroll were presenting programmes about composers whose work they'd specialised in.

Well I guess i have been listening to R3 a lot for around 3 years, so I suspect in R3 terms that is a newcomer !!

Actually, although i have always had an interest in , and enjoyed classical music, my main reason for choosing to mostly listening to R 3 in the first place was the presentation. i mean, seriously, have you listened to any other station such as R2, local, R1, whatever in the last few years? at least on R3 its mostly introduction, music, and repeat.

so, upside, listening to r3 has set me off on so many new musical adventures....and often thanks to the knowledge of rob cowan and some of the others.
downside....i really don't want R3 to copy other stations....they are there already.
No doubt at all though that 3beebies is dumbing down faster than oliver letwin is putting stuff in the bin, even though breakfast is clearly a sensible time for an "entry level"(aaaaaaaaaaaarghhhhh) programme.
all any of us is really asking for is a wide variety of good and great music, sensitively presented, in a variety of ways,to make each day go better.

Sometimes we have to compromise. SR drives me bonkers with his obsequieous interviewing, but lots of people like him , and to be fair "in tune " offers a decent bit of variety....so I live with it.

[aeolium]

This article, written by someone who had worked in the BBC Drama department in the 1990s, is relevant to the debate about BBC cuts. It's not what she says about the failure to repeat Dennis Potter's drama serial that is important, but her comments on the priority given to managers over producers and writers, and the heavy cuts that there have already been applied to new original drama. These sentences especially ring true to those who remember a period when the overall standard of BBC drama, its writing, its production, its performance, was much higher than it is today: "By the time I left the BBC, I'd become disheartened by the destruction of what had been an astonishing source of intelligent, entertaining and controversial television drama for several decades. Instead it was becoming a supermarket-style production line for long-running crime or hospital series and soaps. Serials were reduced to classy but predictable period adaptations, with the occasional depressing contemporary exploration of social problems. Single dramas almost disappeared entirely, while development of new writing was slashed to the brink of extinction."

Mark Thompson and his fellow senior executives have reduced BBC drama, and most other BBC output, to a homogenised, bland, risk-free product. The euphemistic management slogan "Delivering Quality First" will continue this process with further drastic cuts while preserving the huge salaries of what increasingly resembles a largely unaccountable Politburo.

That toothless tiger the BBC Trust is currently consulting on the BBC's DQF proposals - you can make comments on them until 21 December here. One of my comments will be to propose that the BBC abandon the many layers of management and editors who have brought the BBC to this sorry state, reduce the focus on overpaid celebrities and presenters, and give greater autonomy to producers and writers - those who were in the main responsible for "delivering the quality" of the past.

[subcontrabass]

Verdict out earlier today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18083178). Near the bottom we find:

'Radio 3 will have "25 per cent fewer live and specially recorded lunchtime concerts".'

[french frank]

Verdict out earlier today (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18083178). Near the bottom we find:

'Radio 3 will have "25 per cent fewer live and specially recorded lunchtime concerts".'

That was, not surprisingly, in the original document which went out for consultation. FoR3 commented that the Monday Wigmore concert (the only truly 'live' one) should be protected; it would be an opportunity to broadcast archive recitals but it was difficult to express a view without having any idea what was going to replace the current "live and specially recorded lunchtime concerts".

Incidentally, I worked out the figures for content budget increases over the 10-year span of this Charter period, 2006/07 to 2016/17 (projected).

Radio 1 Started at £30.4m, up to £42.1m (+38.5 %)

Radio 2 Started at £37.4m, up to £49.2m (+31.6 %)

Radio 3 Started at £35.9m, up to £40.7m (+13.4%)

These are actual quoted figures, so ten years of inflation bites into the increases. I'm sure there's an explanation ...