Roger Wright talks to Mark Damazer at St Peter's College, 15 Oct 2012

[Guest]

http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/roger-wright-controller-proms-and-radio-3-audio

Friends of Radio 3 gets a contentious introduction from Mark Damazer around the 45min mark, and is defended (shock horror!) by Roger Wright.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

haalf way through the interview and it is fascinating ..

[french frank]

Friends of Radio 3 gets a contentious introduction from Mark Damazer around the 45min mark, and is defended (shock horror!) by Roger Wright.

He knows I'll be watching!

I've heard that bit now, and really, with that intro from Damazer it would have been a disgrace is RW hadn't defended us: we want (apparently) to get rid of everything that isn't classical music, no speech programmes, no jazz, no Womad. He didn't actually say we were against new music - but I bet he was thinking it.

As it was he (Damazer) pleaded with people not to join us . I wonder what research he did - not that Masters necessarily do much research anyway.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

libellous i'd a thought

[french frank]

libellous i'd a thought

Almost! But it'll please the Enemies of the Friends of Radio 3 enormously.

(I should have said 'listening' - I thought it was a webcast).

If I can find an email address for Damazer, I'll copy him in on my 'thank-you' to Roger.................

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

there is a feedback window on the podcast window which i used to register my disappointment at Damazer's attitude to FoR3 ...

mark.damazer@spc.ox.ac.uk

[vinteuil]

... poor man - to have ended up with only St Peter's College of all places. I mean, it's hardly Merton or Magdalen....

[salymap]

... poor man - to have ended up with only St Peter's College of all places. I mean, it's hardly Merton or Magdalen....

I thought our boss sounded rather nervous and hesitant.

[french frank]

I thought our boss sounded rather nervous and hesitant.

He's always slightly hesitant. Anyway, I have emailed him (he's Out of Office), as below, but the content is really as much for M Damazer.

Roger


Many thanks for your defence of Friends of Radio 3 at St Peter's last month! One of our eagle-eyed forum members has just posted the link.

We have, of course, had our differences, but it's disappointing that we're still publicly presented as the "Radio 3B" (Bach, Beethoven and Brahms) lobby group when a glance at The Radio 3 Forum would show how all Radio 3 interest groups are catered for and all enthusiasts with all points of view are welcomed - even if they do frequently grumble about Radio 3. But it's the regular complaints which keep surfacing that are telling. At least 90% of the forum members have no stronger connection with FoR3 than they had with the BBC when they posted on the BBC R3 messageboards, and even on our own forum we have the occasionally hostile contributors ... (Bit of a nerve, really, since we pay all the website and forum costs and don't charge them anything!)

At any rate, you've been spared our onslaught for a while since we have turned our attention to Great Portland Street [The BBC Trust], with a series of papers following the theme of Lord Patten's recent quote that 'an intellectual challenge should be part of the BBC’s DNA'.

The first paper traced the two strategies for 'redefining and broadening' Radio 3's target audience over the past decade, the only similarity between the two being that they aimed to attract more listeners. We argue that the changes have been 'significant'. [This itself is 'significant' - tbc]

The second paper was a detailed critique of the Trust's review of Radio 3 (bit of a lead balloon, I imagine) analysing all the supporting evidence except what in the new spirit of transparency and openness they have refused to publish.

The third (currently being written) is tracing the relative reduction in Radio 3's budget in relation to the other network stations: Radio 1 now spends more on its content than Radio 3; it is also officially budgeted to spend more (as per the Executive Priorities for 2011/12 and 2012/13, and the projections for 2016/17) and we now await only the Trust's seal when Radio 1's service licence guideline budget overtakes Radio 3's, putting Radio 3's content budget officially at the bottom of the network stations. No wonder we've seen an increase in DJ programmes with more trivial chatter (does that decrease fees to collecting societies?). How on earth can you run a quality arts station, with live concerts, full length drama productions, arts and music features, the subsidy for the Proms, on less than Radio 1 costs?

The fourth paper, well, the fourth will be an even bigger lead balloon at number 180 [Great Portland Street]. But we'd better wait until they've dealt with Savilegate before we send that in.

Anyway, this is being copied to Mr Damazer. I hope his plea to the audience not to join us won't result in mass resignations from the many Oxford dons who actually listen to Radio 3 and already have joined us.

As John Drummond always said, no one at the BBC ever took the slightest interest in Radio 3 except the people at Radio 3 - and the listeners, he might have added, though he never had much time for them. Goodness knows what he would have said about Friends of Radio 3 :-).

All good wishes, as ever,

ff

[DracoM]

There is an email for the Master on St Peter's College Oxford website.

[french frank]

There is an email for the Master on St Peter's College Oxford website.

Yup, I copied it to him. Bet he doesn't respond. RW did - just on his way up to Gateshead for Free Thinking. Said he was relieved that his defence of FoR3 met with my satisfaction

I think he made it clear enough what we were not saying (i.e. what Damazer was suggesting), but it's always a problem for the BBC when they have to tell people what we are saying...

[Serial_Apologist]

My impression from listening to that interview is that Damazer was urging Roger Wright not to join For3.

So - RW, an advocate for British composers. A very selective advocate, imho. Hmmmm.

[scottycelt]

This Mark Damazer (whoever he is) sounded like a tipsy teenage girl on a hen-night when he came out with that 'pleading' stuff.

He may be a Master of the Universe or whatever but that was really so awful even Wright was obviously slightly embarrassed by Damazer's sudden hysterics.

The latter's idiotic rantings besmirched what was otherwise a very interesting discussion, imv.

[Serial_Apologist]

This Mark Damazer (whoever he is) sounded like a tipsy teenage girl on a hen-night when he came out with that 'pleading' stuff.

He may be a Master of the Universe or whatever but that was really so awful even Wright was obviously slightly embarrassed by Damazer's sudden hysterics.

The latter's idiotic rantings besmirched what was otherwise a very interesting discussion, imv.

I'd call it "mutual sycophancy".

[french frank]

Don't know what you have to do to become a Master of an Oxford college ...