Trails

[french frank]

It can't make you turn off if you keep hearing them.

I have actually read a radio critic (can't remember who - perhaps Gillian Reynolds, perhaps Robert Hanks) saying that hearing a trail over and over again made them decide NOT to listen to the programme, under any circumstances.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have actually read a radio critic (can't remember who - perhaps Gillian Reynolds, perhaps Robert Hanks) saying that hearing a trail over and over again made them decide NOT to listen to the programme, under any circumstances.

Like being subject to the same adverts on TV, year after year, over and over again, on me. In fact I cannot think of any product I was originally persuaded to purchase by a TV ad.

[french frank]

Can't find the exact ref, but here is GR from last November:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/10460796/The-BBCs-self-promotion-is-driving-me-barmy.html

And RH from 2009:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/robert-hanks-repeated-trailers-are-disfiguring-my-listening-day-1452070.html

We are not alone...

[amateur51]

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?

You missed the point that Shb was making,klever klogs

[amateur51]

I have actually read a radio critic (can't remember who - perhaps Gillian Reynolds, perhaps Robert Hanks) saying that hearing a trail over and over again made them decide NOT to listen to the programme, under any circumstances.

Damn! I thought that it was my original thought!

[Don Petter]

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.

I'm a happy retirer (not a retiree - I retired, I wasn't forced to), so can we have a thread on flower arranging so that the current R3 output might make more sense?

[Honoured Guest]

Someone who hears a trail over and over again is already a heavy listener and would be unlikely to desert their love-hated Radio 3 to witness Brits shoving over foreigners on Putin's artificial slopes.

Someone who hears a trail once or twice is more likely to be more flexible in habit, listening to and viewing the content that interests them, and may be glad to learn of what's available at other times and on other stations.

[Sir Velo]

Of course, Radio 3 has to advertise its own forthcoming programmes but it's the (b)anality of the trails which get on people's goats.

[french frank]

Someone who hears a trail over and over again is already a heavy listener and would be unlikely to desert their love-hated Radio 3 to witness Brits shoving over foreigners on Putin's artificial slopes.

Someone who hears a trail once or twice is more likely to be more flexible in habit, listening to and viewing the content that interests them, and may be glad to learn of what's available at other times and on other stations.

I did suggest that Radio 3 might reinstate its 'Best of Three' programmlet, in which a critic (wasn't it Michael White?) would highlight forthcoming programmes, with a bit of comment. Placed at, say, 8.55am it would reach the station's peaktime audience - at no other time of the day are so many people listening.

PS It could even be repeated once, later in the day

[Honoured Guest]

Of course, Radio 3 has to advertise its own forthcoming programmes but it's the (b)anality of the trails which get on people's goats.

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, a trail which you find banal isn't aimed at you. So why don't you do yourself a favour and mentally "switch off" and maybe contemplate the music you just heard before it? It seems to me to be psychotic to believe that every moment broadcast by a national radio station is aimed personally at you as an individual, and that any output not to your personal taste should be removed. Louis XIV, toi?

[Sir Velo]

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, a trail which you find banal isn't aimed at you.

Well, given we're talking about trails advertising forthcoming concerts, recitals and other R3 broadcasts which, theoretically, should be of interest, IWHT I was part of the target audience. Given others on this thread have expressed similar views it clearly isn't just me is it?

[mangerton]

Damn! I thought that it was my original thought!

No, it was mine, and that radio critic pinched it.

On a similar note, if I see Beckham or Woods or whoever endorsing a product, I just think of the exorbitant fee they're being paid, and don't buy it.

[french frank]

At the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, a trail which you find banal isn't aimed at you. So why don't you do yourself a favour and mentally "switch off" and maybe contemplate the music you just heard before it? It seems to me to be psychotic to believe that every moment broadcast by a national radio station is aimed personally at you as an individual, and that any output not to your personal taste should be removed. Louis XIV, toi?

I don't think you can be allowed to get away with that, HG! Last time there was a Charter review, the Green Paper specifically mentioned that there had been complaints about the 'self-promotion' on BBC radio. The paper added that this was a criticism that the BBC should heed.

To the great glee of the BBC, when the White Paper was published, this had been watered down to a reference of 'some' listeners complaining, but really it wasn't very important.

Now - what happened between the publication of the Green Paper and the White Paper? I can't see anything but the BBC stepping in for a bit of special pleading about how jolly important it was to 'drive listeners barmy' and 'disfigure their listening day' with a plethora of trails; and that they could only be 'psychotic' to complain. The public, of course, didn't get a chance to comment again before the White Paper came out.

[Honoured Guest]

Thank you, french frank. That's very informative and interesting, and this criticism of "self promotion" is yet another different point, to add to Sir Velo's "(b)anality" and Gillian Reynolds's "over and over again".

May I ask, were these "self promotion" complaints referred to in the Green and White Papers about unfair commercial advantage, as when the BBC used to persistently broadcast promotion of Radio Times which was unfair competition to publishers of other listings magazines? Another, ongoing example might be on-air advertisement of forthcoming concerts by BBC Performing Groups.

[french frank]

May I ask, were these "self promotion" complaints referred to in the Green and White Papers about unfair commercial advantage

No, it was about listeners being annoyed. And, of course, it applied to BBC radio, not Radio 3 in particular. Radio 4 listeners prominent among them.

One more thing: way back in the days of Ye Olde BBC messageboards, one of the Radio 3 staff responsible for some of the trails popped up to say that if people were being annoyed by them, it showed that they were being noticed - and therefore they were doing their job! That, I would venture to suggest, is someone who understands nothing about listener psychology ...