Wright or Wrong? RW blogs about the cuts....

[Lateralthinking1]

People like Wright are politicians. The way they phrase things shows that they are into mind games. For example, I'm dropping you a note about the programmes in the coming month but, oh, I guess I should just mention those trivial cuts. I would seem eccentric if I didn't. He should stick with what he knows best - doing that love songs show on Radio 2.

I would like to place on this space my disgruntlement about World Routes this coming Sunday. Not only will it feature the quite magnificent Le Mystere Des Voix Bulgares - quote - "the choir of Bulgarian women who for the past three decades have brought the complexities and subtleties of traditional Bulgarian polyphonic singing to a world audience". There will also only be 50 minutes of it as the drama preceding it is longer than most.

Will this be a regular phenomenon? While there is a lot of understandable upset about jazz, live performance and drama itself, world music is getting a very raw deal all round and that has hitherto been downplayed by contributors. Furthermore, Wright is being disingenuous to the point of untruthful in not explaining in his earlier statements what is going on here.

[french frank]

I'm just listening now. Roger Bolton said: "We haven't had so much correspondence since Nigel Pargetter fell off the roof." Roger Wright's gloss was that the 139 responses were a 'disappointing' number. Who knows better about the response to Feedback programmes - Roger B or Roger W, I wonder ...?

[Ferretfancy]

Nearly thirty years ago, I attended a meeting at the BBCs Ealing Studios at which the main topic was the new requirement that a growing proportion of all programmes should should originate outside the corporation, and that technical staff would henceforth be part of an internal market and have to tout for their tasks instead of being allotted them.
The meeting was chaired by a young high flyer who had been involved in framing the proposals. Naturally, once the damage was done, he was never seen again.
One very experienced film editor asked :- "What about public service broadcasting? " " Don't be sentimental!" was the reply.

The failure of the BBC to resist Thatcherite pressure back then began the steady decline under Birt, where every principle has been sacrificed to expediency. This is a corporate example of the theme expressed in the book and film Mephisto, in which successive small compromises destroy an artist's soul.

[Lateralthinking1]

Excellent post, the other ff. Completely agree. We might need to start asking ourselves about our achievements. We haven't been able to stop the dripping. However, we may have blocked the cavalier arrogance in the newer breed of philistine that has a penchant for shock and awe.

[french frank]

Yes, I thought RW had a bumpy ride. He didn't get away with much, particularly considering that during his "really busy week" he managed to make time to delve into 20-year-old schedules which were as similar as he could find. Oh, yes, the later ones were Sunday morning ones and the earlier ones weekday. But. Apart from that. M'lady Montmorency.

In fact, he didn't even manage to sound plausible.

[John Skelton]

This may be a known text, but http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...o-1200419.html from the Independent when RW was appointed controller of R3 is ... well, what it is:

"It's about maintaining quality, and preserving the public service role. It's about being a cultural patron, about broadcasting live and specially-recorded music. It's about maintaining the voice of authority, and making the audience feel they are part of the world of ideas.'

How important to him are ratings? "What's more important to me is the editorial distinctiveness of the network. We have a loyal and passionately committed audience, and I would like them to listen longer than they do at present." There is no gung-ho bombast here.

Leading Michael Church to remark

Authority, passion, ideas? I think - praise be - I hear the sound of a clock being turned back.

[kernelbogey]

I posted, in erroneous confusion, a comment on this RW Feedback on the Gilllian Reynolds thread. I thought him thoroughly disappointing. A really political, manipulative response. The letter which FF received struck me as likely composed of cut and paste of previously used arguments. RW did a similar job. We could have done with a John Humphries here....

[french frank]

This may be a known text

No, I hadn't seen it. It dates back to a time when people hadn't heard of Roger Lewis or Roger Wright.

'Making the audience feel they are part of the world of ideas'? The world of marketing, more like.

[Bryn]

A quite stunningly poor performance by Wright. He came across and a naughty boy facing the headmaster, and awaiting a sound thrashing (much deserved). In the event he got let of with a lightly slapped wrist. I doubt any of those working at Radio 3 who might have listened to the broadcast were much impressed. Any respect for him among them will have been pretty much dented.

[aeolium]

He completely missed the point about celebrities on Breakfast raised late on in the programme by one of the listeners. That listener argued against the trend on both TV and radio to have celebrities brought on to talk about things that were outside their main field of knowledge (e.g. the mathematician du Sautoy). Wright did not understand that the point at issue was not whether these were celebrities or not but whether they had anything useful to say about the music. The listener had pointed out rightly that in the past R3 had not used celebrities (or public figures) in this way but now it was becoming increasingly frequent.

A quite feeble performance, flustered, petulant and dismissive.

[salymap]

To be fair to RW, perhaps he did mean what he said in 1998. Thirteen years on things have not turned out as he expected and there is more pressure from on high.

And no, I have not been taking lessons from the US but it must be a hell of a job to satisfy those 'suits'.

[antongould]

To be fair to RW, perhaps he did mean what he said in 1998. Thirteen years on things have not turned out as he expected and there is more pressure from on high.

And no, I have not been taking lessons from the US but it must be a hell of a job to satisfy those 'suits'.

Good point , well made, as (almost) always. Having worked in an industry that went effectively from public service to profit is all - the "suits" with no knowledge of how things "work" must like Mrs. Rumpole be obeyed! It's fine suggesting presenters and producers and even RW should "walk" but there are mouths to feed and the, probably, naive hope that sanity is possibly just around the corner heading back.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To be fair to RW, perhaps he did mean what he said in 1998. Thirteen years on things have not turned out as he expected and there is more pressure from on high.

Or, perhaps he's become more of a "corporation man" in those 13 years, sals? I really want "to be fair to RW" (in spite of all the everythings, I think he's a vast improvement on Nick Kenyon) but his "performance" on Feedback today was pure BBC management: "I'm right, everyone else is wrong; shut up and keep paying the License Fee!" Not the slightest glimmer that his many critics might have a soupçon of a point. Naïvely, I had hopes that there might be some concessions vaguely hinted at, if only to keep the disgruntled quiet. But no; everything is perfect, we all live in Stepford and I am a Rhinoceros who loves Big Brother.

Utterly depressing.

[Osborn]

Not the slightest glimmer that his many critics might have a soupçon of a point.

Are there 'many' critics? The day in, day out, all day moaning seems a lot but comes from the same 30 or 40 or so messageboarders out of a membership in excess of 800 - plus a few journalists who will move on to something else next week. Of course there's a soupcon of a point, but we get 168 hours of varied programming each week & 130 plus programmes to hear on iplayer - but the average wrinkled 60 year old listener tunes in for just 6 hours a week so if you don't like what you hear there's another 160 hours to try each week. I'm much with Ventilhorn & probably some others, disappointed that ex Proms, there is so little interest in discussing the content of programmes, the live performances, personal experiences & recommendations etc. There's just so little enthusiasm here now (except the FoR3 agenda). It seemed so much better on the old BBC boards.

[arancie33]

Are there 'many' critics? The day in, day out, all day moaning seems a lot but comes from the same 30 or 40 or so messageboarders out of a membership in excess of 800 - plus a few journalists who will move on to something else next week. Of course there's a soupcon of a point, but we get 168 hours of varied programming each week & 130 plus programmes to hear on iplayer - but the average wrinkled 60 year old listener tunes in for just 6 hours a week so if you don't like what you hear there's another 160 hours to try each week. I'm much with Ventilhorn & probably some others, disappointed that ex Proms, there is so little interest in discussing the content of programmes, the live performances, personal experiences & recommendations etc. There's just so little enthusiasm here now (except the FoR3 agenda). It seemed so much better on the old BBC boards.

I am probably wrinkled, certainly 60 plus and I listen (or try to listen) to R3 for a damn sight more than six hours a week. Signora Arancie and I would like to start the day as we end it by listening to R3 but we cannot because it is just so bloody awful for the period from 0630 to 1200. As I and many others have said before, we are not interested in tweets, texts and personal reminiscences from people of whom we know little and, frankly, care less. All we ask is a varied selection of good music and, no, we don't expect to like it all but it would be nice to get away from Romeo and Juliet, The Four Seasons, Rodeo, Billy the Kid and so on.

I doubt if I could contribute much to the discussions of performances who's absence you bemoan; my personal experiences are just that - personal - and of little interest to the rest of you unless bang on topic which happens very rarely. However, instead of moaning about the morning dross, I shall try to be positive and full of praise for the rest of the schedule - I enjoyed Afternoon on Three from Lucerne today esp the Midsummer Night's Dream and this evening's Mozart was also pretty good I thought. I then lost track and much else after a minor disaster with a collagraph plate - now sorted so, having checked up on you all, I shall go to see how much crossword has been left for me.