The Doctrinaire stupidity of the BBC

[Resurrection Man]

More news = less tweets ? Always a silver lining.

[Domeyhead]

Domeyhead


I’m sorry if this sounds patronising, but those innocent days when we could believe in that have long gone. Breakfast is a programme for people who want background music that is slightly more upmarket than what they can get on Radio 2. The frequent news is important, as it reminds the listeners that they are up-to-date with current affairs; it’s not meant to give any serious thoughts about. Also, radio today does not simply broadcasts, but it interacts. Listeners are partners and the presenter’s role is to ‘create a community’ in which listeners can feel that they matter. Radi3 is no difference (Alas…).

If you want to start the day without frustration, aggravation, or desperation, it will be best if you leave Breakfast alone.

Doversoul, You may be right about the changed role of Radio 3 breakfast but I don't think listeners on this forum object to that - I happily acknowledge that people almost never simply sit and listen to the radio any more without doing something else as well. But your point about the role of news on Radio 3 seems to miss my point. You are NOT "up to date with current affairs" - you are being fed the irrelevant soundbites of a few selected stories from a very narrow band of the BBC's news agenda which itself is a narrow band of what could be broadcast as news, but let's not go there. It is box ticking by programme controllers trying to impress their station controllers at the expense of the audience's preferences and enjoyment. People who escape to the sanctuary of Radio 3 do so knowing that if the news was that important to them they could listen to Today on Radio 4 instead. So do you think in similar measure the Today programme would be improved by the interjection of a piece of music every half hour and that every programme should be some kind of Rainbow Alliance?
You say Radio interacts. No it does not. Radio is still a broadcast medium not a dialogue. I argue that Radio 3 listeners at Breakfast do not want a dialogue - particularly when as you rightly say, the programme itself is only a backdrop. Presenters are instructed by editors to read emails and tweets and to read them out to create an illusion of immediacy. To what purpose? You tell me who is enriched by hearing that some person "likes" a piece played earlier? Radio 3 audiences by and large are not teenagers who need their opinions affirmed or validated by the tweeted opinions of others.
I accept that you may be putting these points as an explanation of Radio 3's behaviours while not actually agreeing with them. My view is that Radio 3 listeners know all the points you are making, and do not like it, and do not agree with it, but are ignored anyway, usually with a patronising pat on the head. That is the background to the very existence of this forum.
You are not a producer by any chance?

[vinteuil]

More news = less tweets ? .

... fewer tweets would be even nicer

[Resurrection Man]

No tweets even better !

[vinteuil]

No tweets even better !

[doversoul1]

Domeyhead
You have to accept the fact that Radio 3 is doing what it means to do. It is not trying to do what you are arguing Radio3 should be doing and getting it wrong. Your argument can easily be counter-argued that what you are saying is based only on your assumptions and taste, whereas ‘we’ (i.e. Radio 3) have ample evidence in the forms of phone-ins, emails, and twitters that listeners like what we are providing’.

You/we need to put aside personal preference and assumptions or beliefs and argue that what Radio3 is doing is actually WRONG, because it is against what it is stated in its remit.

I have dug this out but cannot find the link, so don’t quote it.

"The remit of Radio 3 is to offer a mix of music and cultural programming in order to engage and entertain its audience. Around its core proposition of classical music, its speech-based programming should inform and educate the audience about music and culture. Jazz, world music, drama, the arts and ideas and religious programming should feature in its output.

The service should appeal to listeners of any age seeking to expand their cultural horizons through engagement with the world of music and the arts."

All the same, thank you for posting your thoughts. I, and I guess a lot of the members here, have more or less given up shouting, and are now burying our heads and eras in Through the Night, and dreaming of a day when a miracle happens and the ‘right’ Radio 3 would rise up from the ashes. We need someone new to wake us up from time to time.

[french frank]

You say Radio interacts. No it does not. Radio is still a broadcast medium not a dialogue. I argue that Radio 3 listeners at Breakfast do not want a dialogue - particularly when as you rightly say, the programme itself is only a backdrop. Presenters are instructed by editors to read emails and tweets and to read them out to create an illusion of immediacy.

The programme is trying to be all things to all people. Ossie says that people listen for perhaps an hour - I think that's a gross overestimate: I seem to remember Petroc saying that it was about 20 minutes - which I'm slightly dubious about.

But imagine people who switch on for 30 minutes: they want (apparently) a 'news' update, they want to hear short enough snippets of music that they don't have to switch off in the middle when they have to leave the house, they want to text in and tweet - and hear the texts and tweets of other listeners. I don't think this is credible.

We're told that 'people' appreciate being able to interact with the station and with programmes, but with 2m listeners some of them are bound to: even if it's only 10 a day that's plenty to fill a Breakfast programme.

But do they want to interact with the station and the programmes? Consider these figures:

Checking Facebook, Twitter and the Radio 3 blog, my estimate would be that listener feedback might - in a hugely good month (and I do mean huge) - reach 100 comments/tweets. You can safely cut that in half most of the time. Facebook and Twitter (to say nothing of the BBC) are high profile international 'brands'.

But, inasfar as Radio 3 has an 'interactive' community, it's on a piddling, little low-profile forum that most R3 listeners don't know about. And we get, give or take, 10,000 comments per month. Even if a lot of it is off-topicry, we do our best to encourage people to discuss programmes and topics relating to R3 - and they're discussed here rather than on any of Radio 3's offerings (no wonder they won't give us a link on the R3 website! ).

If Facebook/Twitter/blog are any guide, there are more people (here) complaining about intrusive 'interactive' content on air than there are listeners sending their comments to Radio 3.

My guess is that most people here would at least tolerate a 'proper' news résumé of say, 5 minutes on the hour - and then let's stick to the music for 55 minutes.

The most sensible listener comment I heard was: "If I have to leave home before a piece of music finshes, that's my problem, not Radio 3's."

[Don Petter]

I wholeheartedly agree with Domeyhead's observations.

I hadn't realised the news interval had now crept down to only fifteen minutes, as it is some time since I bothered to listen to R3 in the mornings. A wise decision on my part, it seems.

There were complaints as long ago as January 2002, when the news was increased from on the hour to every half hour. This was the response I had from the station then:

<The programme team of Morning on 3 proposed recently to introduce two
extra short bulletins of headline news into its three hour programme
and this came into effect a couple of weeks ago. This was in response
to listeners' suggestions that they would welcome a quick news summary
as they often missed it on the hour and therefore had to switch
stations to catch the news. We are pleased to offer this service
following our listeners' suggestions and will monitor the response
from our audience to judge if it has met with the expected approval
and allowed our listeners to keep tuned to Morning on 3 as they wish.>

and a post of mine at that time was, it turns out, prophetic:

If people can't go for half an hour at a time without needing the same
items repeated, perhaps their attention span is unsuited to R3. It
seems to be all part of the master plan to turn R3 into 'talk radio'.
Actual music time is becoming more and more precious.


The problem with news on radio or television* is that we are fed with what the broadcasters hold to be of importance or interest, and not that which might interest or affect us. I much prefer to get my news from papers or on-line sites. There may still be the bias and slanting of the reportage, but at least I can pick out what I want, and ignore the rest (which is usually a very high proportion).

[* The pompous self-importance of news presentation on television is enough to make anyone cringe, in any case.]

[Stillhomewardbound]

<< The service should appeal to listeners of any age >>


So, why are we increasingly subjected to such a singular, 'Blue Peter' house-style of presentation?

[Serial_Apologist]

<< The service should appeal to listeners of any age >>


So, why are we increasingly subjected to such a singular, 'Blue Peter' house-style of presentation?

I know! - they've looked at the age demographic of R3 listeners and decided we're all entering second childhood!

[Gordon]

Ref #36:

See here for short bio of the Trust member that oversaw the recent R3 service review and endorsed the management’s proposals for the regime now in place. Note what he says in his statement “David says”, a kind of credo, my emphasis:

"Having spent my whole career involved with programmes, including a short stint at the BBC, I see my contribution as keeping the BBC focused on being the broadcaster that brings the best creative talents to the widest possible audience. It's not here to give people what's proved to have worked, it's here to identify new ideas and support talent who can illuminate the world and stimulate thought."
So there you have it from the top: the new R3 provides things that have not been proved to work and illuminates the world and stimulates thought! Weasel, looking glass words that can mean anything you want them to.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/who_we_are/trustees/david_liddiment.html

[Domeyhead]

Domeyhead
You have to accept the fact that Radio 3 is doing what it means to do. It is not trying to do what you are arguing Radio3 should be doing and getting it wrong. Your argument can easily be counter-argued that what you are saying is based only on your assumptions and taste, whereas ‘we’ (i.e. Radio 3) have ample evidence in the forms of phone-ins, emails, and twitters that listeners like what we are providing’.

No you do not have ample evidence Doversoul - it is the kind of fallacious misuse of data that explains how politicians and now broadcasters always appear to have the figures that justify exactly what they always intended to do anyway. What are your actual listening figures at BBCV Breakfast? And how many of them tweet and email to you as a percentage, and how much airtime to you afford this miniscule sliver? And how many have expressed a positive support for Radio 3's news content and format?

You/we need to put aside personal preference and assumptions or beliefs and argue that what Radio3 is doing is actually WRONG, because it is against what it is stated in its remit.

I have dug this out but cannot find the link, so don’t quote it.

"The remit of Radio 3 is to offer a mix of music and cultural programming in order to engage and entertain its audience. Around its core proposition of classical music, its speech-based programming should inform and educate the audience about music and culture. Jazz, world music, drama, the arts and ideas and religious programming should feature in its output.

The service should appeal to listeners of any age seeking to expand their cultural horizons through engagement with the world of music and the arts."
And how successful have recent changes been in that regard when measured against listener patronage? Doesn't the inclusion of tweets and an excruciating Simon Bates style "Our Tune" interlude suggest creating a facile misleading appearance of updating a programme's image when you are actually shuffling deckchairs into ever new positions while the ship under your feet is sinking?

If the "news" presented on Radio 3 was specifically oriented towards music and musicians your quote might have some bearing, but it isn't. What interrupts listeners' enjoyments is not long enough to be informative, is not impartial enough to be trusted and is not relevant enough to be interesting. It is just a series of Chris Morris style "infobites" grabbed from Radio 4's news and boiled down to 1 or 2 minutes of meaningless contextless pap. I argue that regardless of whether my view is in the minority or not (and use this forum to judge for yourself) Radio 3's news offering is a lazy unprofessional dollop of formulaic discontinuity.


All the same, thank you for posting your thoughts. I, and I guess a lot of the members here, have more or less given up shouting, and are now burying our heads and eras in Through the Night, and dreaming of a day when a miracle happens and the ‘right’ Radio 3 would rise up from the ashes. We need someone new to wake us up from time to time.

The interesting thing about "Through the Night" is that it is sold to several other countries, largely I suspect because the focus is on the music, not on the "show" or the presenters. How many of your other morning programmes are sold abroad? You, or preferably Radio 3 needs to be careful when holding it up as an unwanted anachronism or somebody might just to explain why a Briton should be interested in his fellow countryman's tweets while a German would not

[Resurrection Man]

....
Share prices are quoted with spectacular frequency,

Warning! Warning! Sweeping generalisation alert. I have rarely heard the share price of specific companies being quoted 'with spectacular frequency'. Care to define 'spectacular'?

when the truth is that the normal day to day fluctuations are of no interest or use unless you are one of the parasites who makes living out of buying and selling them.

Oh, do you mean the 'parasites' that work for our pension funds trying their level best to ensure a steady growth ?

Or anyone who invests in shares? See above comment or consider companies trying to raise money by issuing shares so that the company can grow, create wealth for the company, their stakeholders and, via tax, contribute to the welfare of the country and as a useful by-product employ more people?

You really have a spectacularly skewed view on the world of finance.

[french frank]

The interesting thing about "Through the Night" is that it is sold to several other countries, largely I suspect because the focus is on the music, not on the "show" or the presenters. How many of your other morning programmes are sold abroad? You, or preferably Radio 3 needs to be careful when holding it up as an unwanted anachronism or somebody might just to explain why a Briton should be interested in his fellow countryman's tweets while a German would not

It's not exactly "sold" to them. They all provide recordings from their archives and the BBC team puts together the programmes, with gaps between each item so that each home broadcaster can insert its own introductions.

I assume that it's because there are no rights issues that the programmes can be produced very cheaply.

[kernelbogey]

....You, or preferably Radio 3 needs to be careful when holding it up as an unwanted anachronism or somebody might just to explain why a Briton should be interested in his fellow countryman's tweets while a German would not

Szo, Herr Domey, for you ze Breakfast is over... but ve have vays of making you tveet...!