The Radio Times on the Proms and the BBC on culture in general

[Bert Coules]

This is from the Radio Times preview of Friday's TV broadcast of Thursday's concert:

Here's further proof that the Proms isn't all dead composers and dusty old sheet music...

And this is from a recent BBC Twitter post about the Reith Lectures:

The Reith Lectures used to have a lofty, high-brow reputation. But don’t let that old-fashioned view put you off: there’s something there for everyone!

Sad, sad, sad.

[LMcD]

This is from the Radio Times preview of Friday's TV broadcast of Thursday's concert:

Here's further proof that the Proms isn't all dead composers and dusty old sheet music...

And this is from a recent BBC Twitter post about the Reith Lectures:

The Reith Lectures used to have a lofty, high-brow reputation. But don’t let that old-fashioned view put you off: there’s something there for everyone!

Sad, sad, sad.

This particular Prom is also gushingly promoted on page 5, where we're promised 'some refreshing grooves'.
I'm afraid the Radio Times has been slipping gradually downhill for some time. One particular TV reviewer is obsessed with repeats of 'Dad's Army'. The new issue is very interesting if you're a Doctor Who fan. There are also too many instances where a bit of proof-reading wouldn't come amiss, one of which recently referred to somebody or other's Oiano Concerto [sic]. More serious are examples of incorrect timings of programmes.

[Bert Coules]

The Radio Times is independent of the Beeb and can take whatever slant it likes, but to find the once-august BBC itself dismissively using "lofty" and "highbrow" as negative attributes to be happily forgotten is, as I said, sad.

[kernelbogey]

It's hard for me to remember when I last bought the Radio Times - certainly not in the last ten years. It became - how to put this? - distressingly populiist well before that. I can visualise the preening young journalist who thought 'dead composers and dusty old sheet music' a triumph of a phrase. I'm not sure I've come across 'high brow' used with quite that accent of disdain.

[Bert Coules]

I still buy it but more out of habit than anything else, and I really should stop.

[Bryn]

I gave up on it around the time I noted the online schedule for Radio 3 gave so much more information than did RT (Radio Times, not Russia Today).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I stopped buying it three years ago - for telly, the cheapo listings magazines (the ones with the soap actors looking miserable on the covers) are as reliable, for radio, Andrew's weekly listings (plus the Beeb i-Player schedules site) more than adequate - and I no longer pay nearly £2 to read Alison Graham telling me that my favourite programmes are rubbish, and I should be watching Gogglebox.

RT* is a commercial product - depending on selling as many copies as possible - so its greater focus on more popular broadcasts is understandable. Why a compulsorily publicly-funded public service corporation should take a similar hostile attitude isn't.

* = "Radio Times", not "Russia Today". (Nor "Richard Tarleton", for that matter! )

[Bryn]

. . . - for telly, the cheapo listings magazines (the ones with the soap actors looking miserable on the covers) are as reliable . . .

The Guardian Guide (included with my free Saturday copy of the Guardian) picked up, along with a cappuccino, during my Waitrose shopping (a minimum total outlay of a little under £5.00, since the price of the coffee and Guardion contrubutes towards the qualifying £10 spend).

[french frank]

The Radio Times is independent of the Beeb and can take whatever slant it likes, but to find the once-august BBC itself dismissively using "lofty" and "highbrow" as negative attributes to be happily forgotten is, as I said, sad.

This also ties in with another current discussion: Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation is far too lofty a motto. Something snappy is needed like, Get The Punters In or Give 'Em What They Want. Explains a lot

[LMcD]

I echo Bert Coule's sentiments and am getting close to the point where I'm seriously considering not renewing my subscription. I always enter the 'Wordfinder' competition, as it's no trouble to enter by email and I always have the option, should I win and the DVD prize is not to my taste, of donating it to the local hospice shop. I also derive much pleasure from angry readers' letters complaining about the judges on 'Strictly' (a programme which which I've never seen).
As has been pointed out, any specific information not provided by a quality Saturday newspaper can easily be found online.

[Lat-Literal]

This is from the Radio Times preview of Friday's TV broadcast of Thursday's concert:

Here's further proof that the Proms isn't all dead composers and dusty old sheet music...

And this is from a recent BBC Twitter post about the Reith Lectures:

The Reith Lectures used to have a lofty, high-brow reputation. But don’t let that old-fashioned view put you off: there’s something there for everyone!

Sad, sad, sad.

Yes, I buy the Radio Times on occasions because nothing else apart from the net gives me such detail. But what you are quoting here is the same old paranoid "it's not fusty-dusty" that crops up in every other discussion. It's stereotypical in outlook and objective. It is looking for commercial reasons for conversion. Actually, it is even unintentionally a slap in the face for the likes of Q magazine and Uncut magazine which within a very narrow format moved the pop/rock music dialogue beyond cliché and opened into a "this is what is around - take it or leave it but don't just leave it as you might once have done - you could be missing something" sort of vein. Of course, that sort of thing appeals to certain types - ex rockists from umpteen generations who travelled. Coe, Matthews, etc - these are intelligent people but not highbrow - and they themselves would access all that is around. There are many of us.

I know that they don't know - that is, the people who come up with phrases as quoted - who they are aiming at other than perhaps themselves by way of justification for their own classical music preferences. If not, it's just editorial pat. There are huge numbers of people here - possibly veering towards youth, ethnicity and the white working class - who have no conception of classical music so they can hardly have the preconceptions outlined. I will always go back in music to words like "vibrancy" which the media can convey and phrases like "engaging the imagination" which the media can also do while this needs to be supported by involvement ie in schools. What works is a natural organic based, media enhanced mesh.

[Serial_Apologist]

What works is an organic based media enhanced mesh.

Sounds like an ideal device for the making of homemade pasta!

I have to say I do buy Radio Times each week. I prefer everything if possible to be there at the turn of a page, as opposed to at the click of a mouse. I know it contains a lot of stuff I skim past about slebrities and sports; but without the mag I wouldn't be able to draw up my weekly forthcoming jazz broadcasting spoiler, continuing the late and much-missed Calum da Jazzbo's inheritance!

[Lat-Literal]

Sounds like an ideal device for the making of homemade pasta!

I have to say I do buy Radio Times each week. I prefer everything if possible to be there at the turn of a page, as opposed to at the click of a mouse. I know it contains a lot of stuff I skim past about slebrities and sports; but without the mag I wouldn't be able to draw up my weekly forthcoming jazz broadcasting spoiler, continuing the late and much-missed Calum da Jazzbo's inheritance!

Yes exactly.

Lets' face it.

What they are saying - I am envisaging Mogg here as the person writing it but Harman as having agreed it - is that old Bach and Beethoven really aren't just like you, the general public's, parents and grandparents you know. Well, no. Mum was white and she used to boogie down at Cinderellas to Shalamar. Grandad was originally from Trinidad and played in a steel band in Huyton. Me? I'm the woman of 20 who likes "A Night to Remember", ragga, Azealia and Sheeran. Tuned into Gershwin the other night and was surprised - even amazed.

(I want on my tombstone - "Not at all the obvious - he was too aware of the obvious")

[peterthekeys]

I still buy it but more out of habit than anything else, and I really should stop.

I tend to buy it for the cryptic crossword (it's one of the few which I can usually do.) I agree that the content has gone steeply downhill in the last few years - I very rarely find anything worth reading.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I tend to buy it for the cryptic crossword (it's one of the few which I can usually do.) I agree that the content has gone steeply downhill in the last few years - I very rarely find anything worth reading.

I stopped buying it for two reasons -

the obnoxiousness of Alison Graham;
the lack of information on Radio 3 (which used to have a page to itself every day, when there were just 3 radio stations).