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

[VodkaDilc]

I buy The Radio Times once a year, at Christmas. I carefully undo the staples and remove those pages devoted to television programmes I don't watch and "celebrities" I've never heard of. This leaves a concise guide to radio over the two-week period. I never feel the need to continue buying it in January.

[LMcD]

After due consideration, I've just cancelled my subscription. Fortunately, the new payment was due at the beginning of August.

[cloughie]

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).

Yes Alps those were the days when you knew what was going to be on, plan the listening and the taping, and whether to risk a C90 for Heldenleben or Tchaik 4!

[french frank]

Looks as if it's now the 3rd most popular television listings magazine after TV Choice (1.2m) and What's On TV (896,000). Radio Times has 632,000.

[oddoneout]

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).

The lack of R3 information was the reason I stopped buying RT a couple of years ago - and what they did deign to print was too often incorrect/incomplete for the money I was paying. I wasn't interested in the TV related stuff or all the pages trying to be a general interest magazine, and certainly was not interested in all the decrepit person adverts - I know I'm getting older and that bits are rapidly wearing out, and don't wish to pay to be reminded of that fact.
The weekend edition of the local paper simply lists the times of the R3 programmes and I fill in the detail from the online schedules.

[gurnemanz]

I still find it useful even with the acknowledged misgivings expressed above. Our children (mid thirties) find it highly amusing that we still buy it. Obviously all the info is available free of charge elsewhere but I do find it convenient to have all the listings in one printed edition without fiddling around with a laptop or smartphone, eg for a quick glance at the castlist for an opera or play or for individual items in a Lieder recital, which the EPG doesn't give you. I have little interest in it as a general magazine or, so far at least, for its multiple ads for stairlifts, walk-in baths or seacruises, but the thumbnail info about current films on TV can be handy.