Wright defends dumbing down again.

[James Wonnacott]

Just spotted this, apologies if someones got there first.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10540887/Radio-3-boss-defends-playing-of-film-scores-and-TV-themes.html

[french frank]

Interesting. Must make the point that the complaint wasn't about sticking in the odd piece of film music - it was about flooding the station for 3 weeks, in order to attract the attention of people who don't listen to the station. Another contradiction - “There’s no point giving the Radio 3 audience solely what it already knows" (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly also featured in the FoR3 poll because it isn't what a Radio 3 audience doesn't already know, just as they aready know Star Wars). But perish the thought that it was intended for 'the Radio 3 audience' anyway.

They didn't pursue the matter of the budget reduction which (we claim) has fallen on Radio 3 and which, as senior BBC Controller he didn't have the clout to reject. In difficult times, money has been found - but not for Radio 3.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks, James - I hadn't seen this. Interesting how RW uses "Test Match Special" as a comparison about "elitism" - without, it seems, considering that TMS doesn't feel any need to devote part of its airtime to Crazy Golf or It's a Knockout! in an effort to "attract younger audiences". Give the quality, and the audiences will come of their own volition - patronize them, and they stay away.

And then his Dr Jeckyll finishes with excellent points on the prejudices against "Classical Music" (Mr Hyde is still there - ignorant of Jazz and other Musics): such a shame he is unable (for whatever reasons) to come up with valid methods of countering such prejudices. If people don't listen to Brahms because think they don't like it, they're not going to be persuaded to give it a go because R3 broadcasts Feed the Birds, Tuppence a Bag every Saturday.

[amateur51]

Wright uses the argument that Radio 3 shouldn't give people 'what they already know' and then goes on to say that the film music extravaganza was justfied because that's how many people say the first get attracted to classical music. Eh? Isn't that giving people what they already know?

Clear evidence of muddled thinking, I'm afraid - what is clear is that it's about chasing an audience, any audience, and for that I guess the Tories must be to blame for cutting the budget: and NuLabour for beating up the BBC over Gilligangate. Oh dear, and SavileGate and Bung-gate don't help either. Silly, silly arrogant people, suddenly realising that they might be held accountable in the ciurt of public opinion..

I wonder if FoR3 will ever get a reply to any of its letters

[DracoM]

Any BBC / R3 PR person should be wincing with embarrassment at how regularly and completely his/her boss keeps getting himself in a mess in talking to the media. He simply cannot see the implications and contradictions of what he is uttering, but, however, it is an only too revealingly terrible statement of the wholesale contradictions implicit in what R3 is doing at the moment.

Under Wright, it has incrementally tried to colonise areas it does not know how to navigate, nor is suited for, and it clumps around in size 24 boots telling everyone what a good time it is having and isn't everyone having fun. So loud are the boots that the wearer cannot hear the emptying of the room and the sniggering behind hands of presenters and critics, and the miserable, angry tears of listeners.

Kids watching Dads dancing springs to mind.

And Lord Patten sits on his hands.

[french frank]

I wonder if FoR3 will ever get a reply to any of its letters

Good points all, amateur. I've posted a reply trying to address some of them. He accuses us (?) of 'lazy thinking': with his same tired arguements. We 'think classical music is for an elite'? Like hell we do! We'd like to see a regular classical music recital/concert every week on BBC Two. Mix in some concerts with film scores, if they like. Just put the music there every week. He says: “When you ask a general audience when it first heard classical music or when it first heard an orchestra, pretty regularly they will refer back to film music or musical theatre.” Not sure what a 'general audience' is, but Your 100 Best Tunes on Radio 2 was also many people's way into classical music - and they axed it! Melodies for You? - axed. Full Proms concerts - including John Wilson's Orchestra - now moved off BBC Two and on to BBC Four. And who is the chairman of the BBC Classical Music Board, which coordinates the classical music broadcasts across BBC television and radio? - one Roger Wright.

[muzzer]

Agree with nearly all of that - but I would observe that TMS pulls off a v difficult trick in appealing to a broad range of listeners because it fields a wide range of commentators, and always has done. Cricket is a much broader church than it is given credit for. In its desperation to appear hip, R3 looks a bit like your grandad on acid. I have no problem with using film music to snare people with short attention spans, but - oh the irony - did we need weeks of it, and once this new audience has been dragged in, please take it on a proper 'journey' to the established classics. Play the tunes that inspired film composers - eg some Rach alongside the Warsaw Concerto. A decent melody is only seconds long, we're not talking 40 minutes.

[DracoM]

So the definition of 'classical music' now is anything played by an orchestra?
Hmm.

[Bax-of-Delights]

If anyone can cut and paste the article...my monthly allowance on DT access ran out just after Xmas.

I'd echo FF's assertion that many core R3 listeners came to the station via the Light Programme's 100 Best Tunes. I certainly did and that's where the emphasis on hauling in new listeners should lay.

[David-G]

Any BBC / R3 PR person should be wincing with embarrassment at how regularly and completely his/her boss keeps getting himself in a mess in talking to the media. He simply cannot see the implications and contradictions of what he is uttering, but, however, it is an only too revealingly terrible statement of the wholesale contradictions implicit in what R3 is doing at the moment.

Under Wright, it has incrementally tried to colonise areas it does not know how to navigate, nor is suited for, and it clumps around in size 24 boots telling everyone what a good time it is having and isn't everyone having fun. So loud are the boots that the wearer cannot hear the emptying of the room and the sniggering behind hands of presenters and critics, and the miserable, angry tears of listeners.

Kids watching Dads dancing springs to mind.

And Lord Patten sits on his hands.

Very well said. I could not have put it better.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this is an interesting piece of research on the size of the audience for classical programming in the USA

the proportion of college educated people in the population of the area is the single predictive variable .... so Mr W has to get his head around just what he means by elitism .... he should not address the interests of the educated? what about aspiration? dynamic economies of educated citizens? &c .... he and his team are failing the actual audience for R3, for many of us it was indispensable, no longer ...

in doing so they fail the arts of music and speech and thinking ... the role and purpose of public service broadcasting is to provide the society with a reservoir of talent and experience and to enrich the community of people who care and are interested .... patronising shows indistinguishable from commercial pap will not do this .... if that is his aim he has no rationale for the Proms or the Orchestras .. everyone at the BBC has lost the argument with PepsiCola and that bloody economist woman with her misleading quantitative analyses of 'public value'..

good things in life do fall off trees or off the racks at amazon or walmart .... they have to be worked for; any educated person will recall the graft to master their topic .... the didactic process is not driven by a false egalitarianism; it seeks the virtue of genuine competence and genuine service if it wants to succeed and the responsibility and grit of the learner are indissolubly linked to progress ... if the learner fails then she stings, but this is not elitism; it is the most profound category error to see challenge and difficulty of the content as the same process as social exclusion/keeping the serfs underfoot ..... R3 or the Third Programme was utterly open on the air waves and any poor kid could listen, as we did! i am not by nature an elitist and Mr W had better stop calling me one pretty soon; the BBC is one of the snobbiest and elitist social institutions in our society, an in group/a managerial clique/a bunch of thieves until recently [still taking two salaries Mr Y?] they are not just wrong and self serving; they are bad at the job too

[Frances_iom]

RW is purely an apparchik - he has no other driver other than to keep his job and the comfortable expense account lifestyle that goes along with it - he will thus happily traduce any criticism (eg the oft seen belittling of others opinion) rather than enter into dialogue.

[french frank]

Reading the article again, I think he's trying to have his cake and eat it.

To call classical music 'elitist' is unfair, since something like Test Match Special has its own 'esoteric language' (so why try and remove it from classical music?).

“One of the things we need to do is encourage people to listen and get used to listening,” he said (so why ghettoise it on Radio 3 rather than familiarise the willing on mainstream services?).

“But I think what’s disappointing is people say they don’t like something based on no experience of it at all. ” And why have they no experience of it? Because it's all tucked away on Radio 3, which they've never heard of.

[Don Petter]

If anyone can cut and paste the article...my monthly allowance on DT access ran out just after Xmas.

JW's link is open to all. I had no trouble in reading the article.

[french frank]

I had no trouble in reading the article.

Nor did I, but, as far as I know I hadn't subscribed at all. I had to register in order to post.

Another irritating point: journalists. Where did they get any reference to 'dumbing down'? There's no need to label something as being in some way 'inferior' in order to criticise it. They just make it up, but it does the critics no favours.