New BBC D-G

[aeolium]

Judging by some reports, for instance this one, the new BBC D-G George Entwistle appears to be pledging to take the knife to the organisation's bureaucracy.

It seems that successive D-Gs react against their predecessors either in favour of or against bureaucracy. Thus we had the ultra-bureaucrat Birt followed by Dyke who was more enthusiastic about producers and programme-makers, then Thompson with his vast layers of highly paid management and now Entwistle. The legacy of Thompson of course is reduced income and the Delivering Quality First programme, which may simply be a cost-cutting exercise. To what extent Entwistle is bound to follow that programme through is unclear and it's to be hoped that the cost-cutting emphasis is on the bureaucratic superstructure (and associated high salaries).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The report of his opening comments that I heard on this morning News sounded promising; demanding innovation and high standards, etc etc.

But, I've heard so many similar opening "mission statements" over the past couple of decades that I've become jaded and cynical about them: I just hope Mr Entwistle proves true to his words and intentions as expressed here.

[Serial_Apologist]

The report of his opening comments that I heard on this morning News sounded promising; demanding innovation and high standards, etc etc.

But, I've heard so many similar opening "mission statements" over the past couple of decades that I've become jaded and cynical about them: I just hope Mr Entwistle proves true to his words and intentions as expressed here.

Of what Auntie lets you glean from today's RT article, this quote doesn't entice Radio 3 listeners with much in the way of hope:

"Only when asked about Sky Arts", RT Editor Ben Preston's relevant paragraph, second column halfway down P 23 begins, "does Entwistle sound waspish".

We all remember the strong recommendations bestowed on Sky's coverage of music and arts by Mr Pee on here, and his claims as to the superiority over Radio 3... Frankly I wouldn't know; from the listener/viewer's pov, isn't all this a bit... internal? But anyway, Entwistle continues:

"'It's not giving BBC4 a run for its money... Make the good popular". (Eh?? Is this soundbytespeak???), "I don't have a passion for creating tiny niche stuff that only incredibly small numbers of people see" - (that straw man again ) - "If you're going to do arts, aspire to half a million people watching, not 5000!"

As expected. Same old same old, then...

[Thropplenoggin]

Less cheap commercial radio phone-in chat, 'Tweet's, SMS, blah blah blah.

More heavy weight intellectualism, please. Solid programming, close examination of music and all its sister arts, philosophical debate, etc. To use the damnable parlance of our times: "Simps!"

[french frank]

"I don't have a passion for creating tiny niche stuff that only incredibly small numbers of people see" - (that straw man again ) - "If you're going to do arts, aspire to half a million people watching, not 5000!"

As expected. Same old same old, then...

Unless he can maybe get hold of the simple idea that you don't absolutely have to dumb the arts down to the level of mass audience popular entertainment in order to make interesting, informative programmes which also retain the attention of the 5,000 who really are interested in the arts.

[Serial_Apologist]

Unless he can maybe get hold of the simple idea that you don't absolutely have to dumb the arts down to the level of mass audience popular entertainment in order to make interesting, informative programmes which also retain the attention of the 5,000 who really are interested in the arts.

Exactly!

[french frank]

I've just dug out an Independent article by Philip Hensher, dating from 2004 in which he compares an unusually good week for the arts (5 hours, of which just over 3 hours is taken up by the final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year) with the 25 hours of sports coverage.

"In the meantime, we have to accept that no one at the BBC is going to listen to complaints like this one. Despite the fact that the audience for arts, books and music in this country massively exceeds that for any given sport, any suggestion that 25 hours of sport compared to five for all the arts is somewhat disproportionate is going to be swept aside, simply by the fact that it comes from a newspaper like this one; [...] that we weren't grateful for the appalling spectacle of Rolf Harris trying to paint like Cézanne, so we obviously aren't interested in the arts anyway.

"They aren't listening, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't go on voicing our contempt when the BBC pretends that it is fulfilling its obligations with The Big Read and the best painterly efforts of Mr Rolf Harris."

[aeolium]

interesting, informative programmes which also retain the attention of the 5,000 who really are interested in the arts.

I think the number might be a bit higher than that, actually.

I don't really see why high-quality arts programmes cannot be made that are watched by a good-sized audience. It certainly used to be the case and I don't think that audience has disappeared. There should be no need to "dumb the arts down to the level of mass audience popular entertainment" (and I'm not sure that was necessarily implied in GE's comments).

[french frank]

I think the number might be a bit higher than that, actually.

I'm sure it is for any TV channel (I was just repeating the figure in S_A's post). Through The Night goes down to about 2-3,000 at around 3am.

I don't really see why high-quality arts programmes cannot be made that are watched by a good-sized audience. It certainly used to be the case and I don't think that audience has disappeared. There should be no need to "dumb the arts down to the level of mass audience popular entertainment" (and I'm not sure that was necessarily implied in GE's comments).

I wasn't suggesting that was what he said; merely that it was a simple point of what to avoid (though not forgetting that he had responsibility for, inter alia, Ms Cotton's Jubilee parade contribution). Rolf Harris illuminating the art of Cézanne would look good compared to some later arts programmes. I absolutely agree that there is a large and intelligent audience out there for the various aspects of the arts.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well i have seen market research reports and linked to them on the old boreds that the national audience for jazz was 500,000 and a similar sized group [or larger] for classical music ..

what i do most profoundly feel insulted by in such commentaries as Entwhistle's is the implicit insult that as a minority audience member i have somehow captured something i am not entitled to because a swathe of NuLAb/PC/Jobsworths have mindlessly ceded me programming ....

drop R1 Entwhistle let us see the colour of your radical mustard eh .... let the market do what the market does best ...

[aeolium]

Although I think the comment "If you're going to do arts, aspire to have half a million watching, not 5000" is unexceptionable and as a sentiment would have been shared by those who in earlier decades put on intelligent arts programmes precisely to bring a wider audience for the arts. Why should arts on TV be for 5000 and not half a million?

Bryan Magee's series about great philosophers might have been thought in concept to have had a very restricted audience but in fact attracted a lot of general interest, and his book accompanying the series was an unlikely bestseller; also the series was exported to a large number of countries.

Programmes about arts and ideas do not have to be "dumbed down" to be interesting to a generalist audience - they should be on the pattern of the Everyman book library in the early C20 which made the works of great thinkers and novelists widely and reasonably cheaply available to the general public, not just to the well-off or highly educated.

[Russ]

Entwistle's speech to the BBC troops, which was composed entirely for twittercut'n'paste, had 34 mentions of the word 'creative'. No one is yet sure what that might signify.

Russ

[Thropplenoggin]

He was on R4's Today this morning.

He sounds just like Tony Bliar [sic].

[french frank]

I think the comment "If you're going to do arts, aspire to have half a million watching, not 5000" is unexceptionable and as a sentiment would have been shared by those who in earlier decades put on intelligent arts programmes precisely to bring a wider audience for the arts. Why should arts on TV be for 5000 and not half a million?

One thing I'm sure we should agree on is that the arts shouldn't be for that 'legendary 5000'. The key question is: Does the BBC accept that there is indeed an audience of half a million - and more - that will welcome such programmes? Do they accept that producing arts content in the format of popular entertainment shows is producing popular entertainment, not arts? Do they accept that producing arts content in a popular format which holds little or no interest for people who take a deep interest in the arts (that 5000, if you like) is unlikely to be valuable in developing a real interest in the arts in the half million who don't already have it? It's just giving them more of the same.

Bryan Magee's series about great philosophers might have been thought in concept to have had a very restricted audience but in fact attracted a lot of general interest, and his book accompanying the series was an unlikely bestseller; also the series was exported to a large number of countries.

Yes, of course. Plus one thinks of Bronowski's Ascent of Man. The BBC has huge advantages over the programme makers of those days, in technology and to improve presentation. Attenborough's natural history programmes seem pretty good - why not do the same for programmes on the arts for a general audience?

I don't make the programmes, so I don't know. But it seems to me that the whole underlying motivation seems infected by commercialism: what must we do to pull in the biggest audience (punters, customers) possible? What are the hugely popular aspects of popular entertainment? - We'll mimic those.

Another quote from Philip Hensher (2004):

"The BBC's approach to the arts was made apparent to me recently when I heard an apparatchik unwisely remark that it had to look like a football match or a soap opera; without that it wasn't television &c."

Entwistle's speech to the BBC troops, which was composed entirely for twittercut'n'paste, had 34 mentions of the word 'creative'. No one is yet sure what that might signify.

Russ

I suppose we have to give the man a chance

[Paul Sherratt]

>>>>34 mentions of the word 'creative'. No one is yet sure what that might signify.

Might it have something to do with accounting?