Platform 4

[Guest]

Wrong platform?

New Statesman - Discovering Music is sometimes the best thing on Radio 3 - but is it about to be axed?



New Statesman - The sad decline of BBC Radio 3 into Classic FM without adverts

[doversoul1]

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?10142-January-schedule-changes

[ardcarp]

Here's a bit:

When I was a radio critic, the controller, Roger Wright, would take me to lunch and tell me what was going to be happening that season. I’d eat all the oysters I could cram into my gob and then repay him by complaining about the amount of jazz that his station played – but compared to the way it is today, back then the station was a treat. Now it’s Classic FM without the adverts and still, thankfully, without the unctuous announcers but that’s not good enough.

I wonder whether it’s being run into the ground deliberately or by accident. Perhaps Wright has let his attention wander by looking after the Proms each year; as a cricketer, he should know the dangers of taking your eye off the ball.

Then again, he’s not stupid and if the station sounds like shit now (and you can hear the strain sometimes in the presenters’ voices if you listen hard enough), it’s probably because he wants it to sound that way.

As he wasn’t, the last time I checked, an actively sadistic man, or interested in making the nation slightly less cultivated than it was before he took over, then I can only assume that it’s pressure from above, although it’s an odd kind of pressure that starves the station of funds and gives every indication that it doesn’t care whether it lives or dies.

[Barbirollians]

I am not quite sure why bb has edited his opening post but the New Statesman article to which he linked - was right on the money .

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/11/the-sad-decline-of-bbc-radio-3

[Dave2002]

Here's a bit:

When I was a radio critic, the controller, Roger Wright, would take me to lunch and tell me what was going to be happening that season. I’d eat all the oysters I could cram into my gob and then repay him by complaining about the amount of jazz that his station played – but compared to the way it is today, back then the station was a treat. Now it’s Classic FM without the adverts and still, thankfully, without the unctuous announcers but that’s not good enough.

I wonder whether it’s being run into the ground deliberately or by accident. Perhaps Wright has let his attention wander by looking after the Proms each year; as a cricketer, he should know the dangers of taking your eye off the ball.

Then again, he’s not stupid and if the station sounds like shit now (and you can hear the strain sometimes in the presenters’ voices if you listen hard enough), it’s probably because he wants it to sound that way.

As he wasn’t, the last time I checked, an actively sadistic man, or interested in making the nation slightly less cultivated than it was before he took over, then I can only assume that it’s pressure from above, although it’s an odd kind of pressure that starves the station of funds and gives every indication that it doesn’t care whether it lives or dies.

There is also this paragraph:

I know I can listen to all the Webern and Shostakovich that I want all day long on YouTube but the nice thing about hearing something on the radio is that you know there are people out there who are prepared to share their tastes with you and let you know that you are not alone. It is the general principle behind the whole medium.

Trouble with R3 now is that the nutters who appear to be in charge seem to think that being "connected" with others who are interested in music means:

1. Listening to a list of "twitters" (I prefer "twits") who have "tweeted" (BH - I hate that word - and now it's even in the **** OED apparently ...) to say they've heard the last piece or two played.

2. Reading out a list of people who have answered a quiz.

3. Doing requests for no particular reason at all. I really don't care if someone wants to listen to Bach's Brandenburg Concerto 5 while doing the Christmas dinner, and dedicate it to their dog or aged grandmother. [In fairness, I'm not sure if R3 has done this recently, though I think it may have tried during the last year or two.]

1-3 above remind me of Forces Favourites or Family Favourites - from long ago on the Home Service.

4. Getting people to phone in. However, getting them actually on the air must be expensive - because of the screening and checking needed to do it properly, so they seem to have resorted to reading out emails. I'm not particularly in favour of phone ins - though on occasions there have been some interesting stories. Otherwise it's all just dross.

"Tricks" they are missing include:

5. Getting details of traffic holdups during "drive time" programmes.

Coming back to the last quote from the article, actually I'm not sure that I really want to hear the views of every Tom Dick and Harry (or Sally, Susan and Nasreen) about how much they like (or not) music, but I do want to hear informed comment from people who are knowledgeable and hopefully expert in what they do. There may be scope for knowing what others are doing, or listening to (as for example here - the "What are you listening to now" thread - which is sometimes useful for picking up ideas, but there's no need for the whole output of a radio station to be in this format.

[teamsaint]

Dave 2K+2.......some questions (in all directions) would be good too, whether from those wishing to be better informed, from presenters, or experts.
Education is surely a two way process?

[doversoul1]

bb didn’t seem to have seen this thread either

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?10048-NS-comments-on-3

[Nick Armstrong]

What does the thread title mean...?

[doversoul1]

bb has shifted to the 'January schedule changes' thread, the picture and all (#75)

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?10142-January-schedule-changes&p=363982#post363982

I suppose this thread can be merged/closed?

[ed. 12.53pm] Well, bb has disappeared from his/her new place too but there is ff’s reply so I didn’t dream it.

[ardcarp]

How about Platform nine-and-three-quarters ?

[amateur51]

What does the thread title mean...?

Matron must've taken her eye off him and he's out of bed again

[bb]

What does the thread title mean...?

4 = 3 + 1

Platform 4 = Platform 3 + 1

In the opening post (OP), bb questions whether Platform 4 is the wrong platform? Writing in 'New Statesman', Antonia Quirke reports that the BBC Trust recently described Radio 3 listeners as a “a subset of the Radio 4 audience”.

New Statesman - Discovering Music is sometimes the best thing on Radio 3 - but is it about to be axed?

If Radio 3 listeners are only a subset of the Radio 4 audience, Platform 3 is only a subset of Platform 4. Is Platform 4 therefore the wrong platform? Well, it is probably true that most Radio 3 listeners also listen to Radio 4, on occasion, so in this specific sense, the BBC Trust has a point. Nevertheless, Radio 3 is principally a (classical) music radio network, whereas Radio 4 is principally a speech based news, current affairs and factual radio network. There is an overlap, in the sense that Radio 4 sometimes broadcasts programmes on (classical) music, and Radio 3 sometimes broadcasts programmes on the wider arts and ideas, for example, 'Free Thinking', which would obviously reach a bigger audience on Radio 4. To describe Radio 3 listeners as a subset of the Radio 4 audience, however, is disdainful. Antonia concludes thus:

" ... The disdain contained in that phrase feels absolute. It suggests a license to dismantle not just certain music specialism programmes or even speech-based programmes on Radio 3 but possibly, somewhere down the line, once it’s been squashed to a kind of Classic FM, an entire station, without so much as a single desperate dash across town or a breathless conference in a lift. It really is ice so cold it’s almost dry."

So should Platform 3 be moved to Platform 4? This is the meaning of the thread title. The legendary bb argues that Platform 4 is the wrong platform. Platform 3 is the place to talk about anything. There are no limits.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

How about Platform nine-and-three-quarters ?

[bb]

Don't talk rubbish. There is no platform nine and three-quarters.

[french frank]

How about Platform nine-and-three-quarters ?

Perhaps that should be 13¾ ...