Programme presentation on R3

[french frank]

If I had to comment on 'presentation' it would be generally what goes in between the music. For me (and this is purely personal) I'm really only interested in information/comment which illuminates or adds background to the music being played (what Radio 3 calls 'contextualisation'). I don't want to have to listen through regular bits of news, regular trails, a regular theme running through a programme which listeners are invited to contribute to, phone-ins which are personal reminiscences, quizzes, guests who happen to like odd bits of classical music, but don't know enough to warrant sharing it with an audience and who are therefore asked about aspects of their life and career.

Style of delivery in the more general programmes (Breakfast, Essential Classics and In Tune) has to be 'welcoming' and I think that efforts to sound 'warm and enthusiastic' because that's what you've been told to do sound irritating and false - and inappropriate. it sounds as if the presenter is constantly amused by something.

Programmes which have a particular focus are much more successful (The Early Music Show, Composer of the Week, the old Discovering Music) but because the target audience is now the general public, rather than music enthusiasts, that target audience finds them 'dry' and 'heavy going'. They want the music to be leavened with light-hearted chat (apparently).

Whereas Radio 3 used to be a music and arts station for people who wanted something more than the basics and the familiar; it is now to be a general music station which (according to Essential Classics) must avoid the very things many of us want to hear and just provide the basics with some leavening of light music..

The CFM 'Hall of Fame' aims to familiarise listeners with certain works that are plugged over and over again, and the audience likes hearing the pieces it's familiar with. Radio 3 is 'distinctive' because, whereas CFM plays Addinsell's Dangerous Moonlight' Radio 3 is a cut above and plays Addinsell's 'Warsaw Concerto'.

[Anna]

I'm glad the title of this thread has been changed because, on International Womens Day, I found it rather tiresome and extremely sexist that only KD, SM-P and SW were being singled out .... Whereas the male presenters had not a cross word against them....
However, as Caliban very wisely says upthread real blame falls on the numb-skull directives and the (to be charitable) hapless 'early morning' producers who have to carry them into effect....
I'm pretty certain that the constant exhortations to tweet, email, etc., really grate with most of the presenters but they have been told to do it, and they do (through clenched teeth a lot of the time I imagine)
Edit: Whoops, cross posted with frenchie - she always does it better than anyone else and has articulated what I meant to say in her para 2!

[Sir Velo]

I'm pretty certain that the constant exhortations to tweet, email, etc., really grate with most of the presenters but they have been told to do it, and they do (through clenched teeth a lot of the time I imagine)

Are they claiming coercion?

[Flosshilde]

Are you suggesting RW is a bigamist?

[ahinton]

If I had to comment on 'presentation' it would be generally what goes in between the music. For me (and this is purely personal) I'm really only interested in information/comment which illuminates or adds background to the music being played (what Radio 3 calls 'contextualisation'). I don't want to have to listen through regular bits of news, regular trails, a regular theme running through a programme which listeners are invited to contribute to, phone-ins which are personal reminiscences, quizzes, guests who happen to like odd bits of classical music, but don't know enough to warrant sharing it with an audience and who are therefore asked about aspects of their life and career.

Style of delivery in the more general programmes (Breakfast, Essential Classics and In Tune) has to be 'welcoming' and I think that efforts to sound 'warm and enthusiastic' because that's what you've been told to do sound irritating and false - and inappropriate. it sounds as if the presenter is constantly amused by something.

Programmes which have a particular focus are much more successful (The Early Music Show, Composer of the Week, the old Discovering Music) but because the target audience is now the general public, rather than music enthusiasts, that target audience finds them 'dry' and 'heavy going'. They want the music to be leavened with light-hearted chat (apparently).

Whereas Radio 3 used to be a music and arts station for people who wanted something more than the basics and the familiar; it is now to be a general music station which (according to Essential Classics) must avoid the very things many of us want to hear and just provide the basics with some leavening of light music..

I couldn't agree more -and I really do believe that, in the long run, R3's done itself no great favours with this policy.

The CFM 'Hall of Fame' aims to familiarise listeners with certain works that are plugged over and over again, and the audience likes hearing the pieces it's familiar with. Radio 3 is 'distinctive' because, whereas CFM plays Addinsell's Dangerous Moonlight' Radio 3 is a cut above and plays Addinsell's 'Warsaw Concerto'.

Ah, indeed - but, not having heard either broadcast, did even R3 mention that Addinsell, who'd left RCM with no qualifications, got Roy Douglas to orchestrate the Warsaw Concerto for him? Douglas, incidentally, who also assisted Walton and Vaughan Williams among others, was born a year less a day before Elliott Carter and is still with us...

[ahinton]

Are they claiming marital coercion?

I very much doubt it, after all, there may indeed be the "constant exhortations to tweet, email, etc." that Anna mentions but I've no evidence to suggest that the "etc." includes licence point swapping.

[Gordon]

..... I found it rather tiresome and extremely sexist that only KD, SM-P and SW were being singled out .... Whereas the male presenters had not a cross word against them....

Quite right! Just to straighten the record a bit, I have a bit of a problem with old Rafferty, despite his undoubted cultural credentials, his Woganesque bonhomie does kind of grate after a while but that does not mean I want him sacked!! I'm sure he is a welcoming voice to those that listen at that time and who are looking for a friendly voice whilst stuck in traffic. And Rob, expert though he undoubtedly is on recordings, does sound a bit like Uriah Heep at times [no offence] ?

Better now Anna?

Perhaps we all need to hear ourselves the way others do?

As it happens I listened to an old Interpretations on Record earlier and the presenter was a well known and respected scholar but of the old school BBC, public school and all no doubt. Sounded like a male version of Linda Snell. Even back in the good old days there were aspects of presentation that may have been daunting to a working class lad like me but I got over it.

Edit: Whoops, cross posted with frenchie - she always does it better than anyone else and has articulated what I meant to say in her para 2!

Same here!! #31 summarises a lot of what many of us feel. Unfortunately what she says about BBC's view of distinctiveness is on the button. Weasel words.

[Nick Armstrong]

Caliban very wisely says

[Wallace]

1 JS DML FT AMG JS SMPpm PG CB LF JJ MH

2 SMPam PT CBH SW RC KD SR SK TS

[Anna]

1 JS DML FT AMG JS SMPpm PG CB LF JJ MH
2 SMPam PT CBH SW RC KD SR SK TS

Is that an Alphabetical Sudoko or a Haiku?

[Gordon]

1 JS DML FT AMG JS SMPpm PG CB LF JJ MH

2 SMPam PT CBH SW RC KD SR SK TS

Is there a prize or do we have to email in or tweet the answer?

[french frank]

Same here!! #31 summarises a lot of what many of us feel. Unfortunately what she says about BBC's view of distinctiveness is on the button. Weasel words.

Delving back to find the independent review of the BBC's digital radio services (with a view to judging how 'distinctive' they were, whether they impinged on commercial rivals etc), I find this:

"According to Chrysalis’s research, a sample analysis showed a 37.4% overlap between 1Xtra’s and Galaxy’s choice of tracks. Chrysalis comment: “This is probably as high a level of overlap as would be considered desirable for 1Xtra to maintain its claim of distinctiveness.”

Their broader criticism is that, however distinctive, 1Xtra does not extend choice to a wider audience than that served by their stations. They argue that 1Xtra should change its remit from a station playing Black “urban” music for a young audience to one that caters for a wider Black audience, from 15 to 54, with a greater focus on speech, and with a wider reach to older listeners who are served by no-one at present."

The BBC wants all its services to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. But that means all services will appeal to a middle of the road audience and none will appeal to minority interest audiences. Since 2007 Radio 3 has increased its efforts to 'broaden its audience' and has decreased the amount of what was once a serious station to the audience that appreciated it.

If the BBC takes the view that Radio 3 is 'distinctive' because it plays a slightly different selection of music, they are unconcerned that there is no fundamental choice, since both R3 and Classic FM are aiming to make classical music 'more accessible'; they are serving the same audience in slightly different ways, not serving different audiences.

Classic FM boasts about its child listeners too.

[Sir Velo]

1 JS DML FT AMG JS SMPpm PG CB LF JJ MH

2 SMPam PT CBH SW RC KD SR SK TS

1st eleven and reserves?

[Wallace]

1st eleven and reserves?

Well played sir!

[antongould]

Ah, indeed - but, not having heard either broadcast, did even R3 mention that Addinsell, who'd left RCM with no qualifications, got Roy Douglas to orchestrate the Warsaw Concerto for him? Douglas, incidentally, who also assisted Walton and Vaughan Williams among others, was born a year less a day before Elliott Carter and is still with us...

Yes R3 did, in fact it was a Musical Map....thingee about Roy Douglas that lead to the Concerto being played.

I have to say as I have said before I find SMP a wonderful presenter at any time of day......