Trails

[kernelbogey]

I could find only a very old thread about trails so thought I'd start a new one.

I've just heard a trail, for the advent service from St John's College Cambridge, recorded by a husky-voiced woman who pronounced 'Saint' to rhyme with paint, rather than the 'sunt' which is the usual pronunciation with saints' names.

This voice is familiar from R3 trails and I'm fairly sure I heard the same voice in a trail on Radio 2; and since I've never heard her broadcast I therefore assume that she's someone used by the marketing department just for trails. I always think she sounds like a teenager trying to sound mature.

From these boards I've understood that marketing has been under the direction of Tim 'Where's my tie?' Davie, who has imported his soft drinks marketing expertise to the noble BBC.

I hope that this abominable and entirely useless 'marketing' through trails will be ended by the new DG. I find this practice far more irritating that informative.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Saint/ sunt, trails/ trulls?

Actually I thought it was saint/ sint, ergo trails/ trills

Sunt/ sint: OMG, flashback to Latin lessons 40 and more years ago: a 'Nasty Case of the Subjunctive' IIRC. Though 'case' is no doubt completely the wrong word in this context...

[kernelbogey]

Sancti Johanae in Collegiae Cantabrigiensia Oxonque diversi sunt.

So there.

Actually I was objecting more to the breathless faux-intimate style exhorting one to tune in to a specific broadcast, as though it was on a pile of bargains about to disappear for ever: close your eyes as you listen to one of these and you recognise that this is a mode of discourse which you never hear except in the context of an advert. (Imagine buying a pint of milk in such a voice, for example!)

[Nick Armstrong]

the breathless faux-intimate style exhorting one to tune in to a specific broadcast

It's absolutely awful, I agree... (The other one is the slow, faux-portentous, "Now-with-added-significance" style affected by P Trelawny Esq in some of the trails he's been responsible for.)

[MickyD]

I have been lucky not to have had the misfortune to hear the trail myself, but it sounds very like some of those other irritating people who accentuate certain words because they think it makes them sound more posh - a classic example is the frequently heard pronunciation of "hospital"...."hosspittal".

[decantor]

All trails enrage me. Even this mention of them pushes my BP up to dangerous levels.

When first I heard the St John's trail (last Monday), I froze to listen attentively to the divine sounds suddenly emerging from my speaker; after two seconds, a voice started jabbering over the music; I swore fortissimo, as I have on every subsequent occasion. Our Arts broadcaster is defacing art. I am left speechless with rage. Again. Off with their heads!

[kernelbogey]

Blimey, Decantor, I think you should have a little lie-down. Almost sorry I posted....

[decantor]

Blimey, Decantor, I think you should have a little lie-down. Almost sorry I posted....

Don't be sorry, kb - it helps to let off steam. I mean, who else listens......?

[Thropplenoggin]

Have 'trails' been getting more prevalent of late? I've noticed that 'trail' voice-over duties now fall to Andrew McG (whose voice begins to grate, as a result) and Martin Handley. The new format seems to demand at least five hyperbolic adjectives per trail: 'sumptuous'/'ravishing'/'exquisite'...'orgasmic' can't be far off.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

agreed all but the one that currently gets my goat the most is Ms Walker frequently telling us that some bloke she was going to make pre-recorded interviews with has gone on a stint of paternity leave so she will replay the pre-recorded stuff from James May [actually not bad] ... but she tells us at least five thousand times or more that the bloke on paternity leave will undergo his pre-recording and will be broadcast not to worry and so on .... [swelp me the blighters are breeding!] even on three weetabix and chocolate hobnobs i cannot take this!

btw if you check out Ms Walker's website you might think her undoubted talent is wasted on Essentail Warhorses

[teamsaint]

agreed all but the one that currently gets my goat the most is Ms Walker frequently telling us that some bloke she was going to make pre-recorded interviews with has gone on a stint of paternity leave so she will replay the pre-recorded stuff from James May [actually not bad] ... but she tells us at least five thousand times or more that the bloke on paternity leave will undergo his pre-recording and will be broadcast not to worry and so on .... [swelp me the blighters are breeding!] even on three weetabix and chocolate hobnobs i cannot take this!

I heard that just the once. You know, I can just about contain my excitement for hearing a radio presenter talking to another radio presenter.
(bacon interviewing the Doc would at least have a slim chance of being interesting to an R3 audience.)
did I hear a trail for the winter olympics on R3?

If so, why?

[Frances_iom]

...
did I hear a trail for the winter olympics on R3?

If so, why?

it fills the slot at a significantly reduced cost - to answer an earlier poster - I too believe there have been significantly more trails (and my R3 listening is diminishing each month) - my own guess is that the new intended audience are those who just want a familiar tune + voice but without the brashness of other channels - ie a late middle-age R2 for happy retirees to have on whilst doing the flower arrangements - non critical audience that soon could be sold to CFm if boy David gets in next time.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

btw if you check out Ms Walker's website you might think her undoubted talent is wasted on Essentail Warhorses

I've just checked it. Most interesting. The oh-so-matey style shows it's really her though. But CBH is no fool either. But the way they pass the baton from one to the other, at the end of Drivel-on-3, is so smooth that it's quite impossible to tell the difference - the programmes and the presenters.

[Stillhomewardbound]

What I resented most about the husky female trailing was that she was not someone from the network, or associated with. Merely a jarring piece of branding. A disembodied husky ingenue voice.

As for Ms Walker and the verbatim apologia for the non-appearance of Richard Bacon which has been replicated without hesitation, deviation repetition throughout the week, has this broadcaster no capacity for either improvisation or extemporisation whatsoever.

If this print-through patter is adhered to for the benefit of the hoards of new listeners joining the new lands of Radio Classic FM Free (did you see what I did there, yeah? Clever, right) then they neither knew nor cared, that Richard Bacon had been scheduled to appear, or they would have been up at the table with their lolling tongues out at the beginning of the week and would have been already briefed. So, what really is the point?

Back to the bigger picture of trails, I wonder if the BBC would have the cojones to meet us half way and attempt an experiment. That is, would they dare to abandon all trailing for one week and see what happens?

I wish they'd give it a go because I'm sure they'd discover that their trail schedule has as many people turning off as tuning in.

[Honoured Guest]

... I'm sure they'd discover that their trail schedule has as many people turning off as tuning in.

It can't make you turn off if you keep hearing them. Or are you the one who keeps it playing in your toilet as a deterrent to burglars?