The Spectator's view of R3

[Guest]

From this week's Spectator: Charles Moore's view of R3:

By degrees, rather than any sudden change, Radio 3 is becoming stupid. It is a sign of cultural defeat when you have to keep on assuring your audience that what they are listening to is wonderful. The music is constantly praised for making you feel ‘stunned’, ‘blown away’ etc. We were told that, on Boxing Day, we should ‘relax with a turkey sandwich’ in order to listen to something or other. There is a long programme each morning, tautologically named ‘Essential Classics’, where this approach prevails and presenters make a funny sort of noise when they speak which is supposed to indicate they are smiling. Emails are read out from listeners who also claim to have been ‘blown away’ (not, unfortunately, far enough away) by a piece they want played. To me, a musical ignoramus, the pleasure of listening to Radio 3 is related to the idea that you might learn something. The programme ‘Building a Library’ on Saturday mornings is a revelation because it instructs one in differences which, unaided, I should never have noticed. Music is degraded when the audience is treated like people getting on to aeroplanes. It is a thing in itself, not mere therapy for people who would otherwise suffer from boredom or fear.

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[Nick Armstrong]

Well written, save for the snooty parenthesis which is silly and lowers the tone. Bar that, I agree with him

[decantor]

Moore very largely expresses my view too: music is too often being sold as if a commodity, Joe Public's input is irrelevant in its present format, and there are honourable exceptions such as BaL. But is a shift of policy any more likely now that Charles Moore has come aboard?

[VodkaDilc]

But is a shift of policy any more likely now that Charles Moore has come aboard?

I imagine the BBC would see him as an old-ish fogey - probably how they view us too - so I am sure that his opinions will be judged irrelevant!

[french frank]

I imagine the BBC would see him as an old-ish fogey - probably how they view us too - so I am sure that his opinions will be judged irrelevant!

On the other hand, whose views would they respect? So far none of the critics has spoken in favour of the new style and a string of them have been against.

I wonder what Simon Heffer thinks, given that he's landed another little series on R3. This is how he viewed CFM, so logically ... .

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Somehow, I'm not so offended by the way they do it on CFM. They've never many made any pretence about their product. But when R3 copy the style like an unintelligent and pathetic flock of sheep, it really grates.
What is the point in having two identically naff classical music stations? A suicide mission?

[VodkaDilc]

Somehow, I'm not so offended by the way they do it on CFM.

That's true. I see that Simon Heffer, in the article mentioned above, sees David Mellor and Natalie Wheen as beacons of excellence on ClassicFM. I agree about Natalie and have often made that point on this forum; it's a shame that she moved from R3 (wasn't it her fruity language?). I'm not so sure about Mellor; I find he has some strange opinions (and is too opinionated about them). His radio delivery is also rather halting and fragmented - surprising for a politician!

[BBMmk2]

I still think it high time that the poswers that be oat BBC, should realise that their audience are not naff stupid people?

[VodkaDilc]

I still think it high time that the poswers that be oat BBC, should realise that their audience are not naff stupid people?

But they assume that with their television audience............ and people watch!

[Ferretfancy]

But they assume that with their television audience............ and people watch!

That's true in general, but let's compare like with like. Supposing that the BBC, on radio or television, had a regular daily broadcast on all the visual arts, and punctuated it with stupid phone ins asking people to name their favourite Caravaggio, or email with their guesses when a small bit of a masterpiece was on view. They might have a celebrities choosing their favourite pictures, Bubbles maybe, or the Laughing Cavalier,all with gushing enthusiasm from the presenter and guest How would this be received by a discriminating audience? The BBC cover the rest of the arts seriously for the most part,but music on Radio 3 is fair game for every kind of drivel.

Benjamin Britten once complained that music was being devalued because it could be accessed like turning a tap, but I doubt if even he could have predicted the present R3 mess.

[Osborn]

I still think it high time that the poswers that be oat BBC, should realise that their audience are not naff stupid people?

No, you can't say that. What you can say is that some of their audience are not naff stupid people, but noone knows if it's a minority or majority.

Ignoring the fact that the Simon H Torygraph piece is 6 years old & his views have nothing to do with current R3 & CFM programme content & presentation, its weakness is that he describes classical music as more than a passion, 'an overwhelming part of my life'. [slight paraphrase there]

This puts him in a tiny minority of R3's 2 million listeners, at the far end of a scale of Interested > Enthusiastic > Passionate > Abnormal Amateur (as opposed to professional musicians). Roger W might feel that he will have a successful & generally admired station if he listens to the wishes of the Abnormal Amateurs & does the opposite.

[Mr Pee]

No, you can't say that. What you can say is that some of their audience are not naff stupid people, but noone knows if it's a minority or majority.

Ignoring the fact that the Simon H Torygraph piece is 6 years old & his views have nothing to do with current R3 & CFM programme content & presentation, its weakness is that he describes classical music as more than a passion, 'an overwhelming part of my life'. [slight paraphrase there]

This puts him in a tiny minority of R3's 2 million listeners, at the far end of a scale of Interested > Enthusiastic > Passionate > Abnormal Amateur (as opposed to professional musicians). Roger W might feel that he will have a successful & generally admired station if he listens to the wishes of the Abnormal Amateurs & does the opposite.

I don't know how you can on the one hand say that nobody knows if the majority of the BBC audience are "naff, stupid people"- how charming- and on the other say with such certainty that only a tiny minority of Radio 3 listeners regard music as an overwhelming part of their life.

I would suppose, although I do not know, that for at least a fair proportion of the Radio3 audience, Classical Music is indeed overwhelmingly important.

[Lateralthinking1]

I'm suspicious of them.

Moore was fined for withholding his licence payment because of the Ross/Brand incident. He criticises institutions, public and private, as they have become. He cites the questionable standards and their disinterest in the public view. Also, the blurring between the two sectors so that when the non payment was followed up, it was by Capita, a private company.

But what game are they playing? Moore's stand was lauded by people like Douglas Carswell who would clearly hold a party the day the licence itself came to an end. His wading now into the Radio 3 debate looks on the surface like a standard plea for improved standards. But is it? It could also be making the most of an opportunity to suggest that the licence isn't worthwhile.

These people appear to want both an old style Radio 3 and yet no state broadcasting service at all. That appears conflicted. Then one realises they may be of the opinion that classical music should just be enjoyed live and only by people who can really afford it. In other words, only people like them.

[rank_and_file]

As has been alluded to, Heffer made his comments on CFM some 6 odd years ago. Many readers of these boards believe that there is now very little difference between Radio 3 and CFM until 12 noon arrives.

I am all in favour of a Public Service Broadcaster which, in days of yore, I understood was a broadcaster that put on programmes that commercial stations would not make because of lack of funds, skill, audience numbers, content and so on. However, from being a monopoly provider, and underwritten by the licence fee, over the years the BBC has changed into a vast media empire competing with all UK opposition whether it be on television or radio, and any Reithian principles it had have, in the main, long since been discarded.

How many TV and radio channels does the BBC now run, programming, in the main, programmes that the commercial sector does just as well? Look at what programmes the commercial stations are showing and, I warrant, you can probably find a BBC equivalent on one of their many stations.

I cannot wait for the demise of this demeaned self-serving media empire, and hope that with the digital age it is left as a subscription public service broadcaster with one TV channel and the equivalents of the old Third programme and Radio 4.

[DracoM]

I suspect that BBC R3 managers have indeed thought ahead, and now believe that those who listen seriously to music and yearn for intelligent talk, debate and analysis are a rising minority, whereas those who want mere wallpaper are in the rising majority. Thus any music that disturbs this anodyne hum in the background and causes listeners to even raise an eyebrow or, perish the thought, decide to turn off, must be kept out of mainstream broadcasting since to lose share is slow death.

And keeping / increasing share / reach is more important than............what?

I think we need to take it that whatever lip service is paid, Public Service broadcasters are now locked into aggressive commercial values/ ways of thinking. And if the govt of the day insist on a rigorous value for money approach, and reduce subsidy, then natch all the 'peripherals' go, and that which maximises visible and countable reach must alone be bigged up to suggest that the BBC is doing a fine job. What that fine job actually is................is of course increasing reach.

If you detect a vicious and ever tightening circle in that, alas! I think you are right to do so.