Originally posted by ARBurton
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If there is any space left in the schedules after that, there are certain ensembles and conductors that are usually featured - National Youth Orchestra, John Wilson, West Eastern Divan Orchestra with Barenboim, or more recently Chineke, Nicola Benedetti, Simon Rattle etc. Essentially they are looking for performers who are recognised names for the TV audience, or performers and/or programmes that can be seen to promote diversity.
The big international orchestras used to be included in the TV schedules, but I wonder if the advent of things like the BPO's Digital Concert Hall has made this more difficult to negotiate; very few are featured this year and neither of the Berlin Phil's concerts are being shown on TV.
For some reason, Glyndebourne's visits to the Proms are never televised, even though a semi-staged opera would seem ideal for TV. Perhaps Glyndebourne forbid this as part of their agreement to perform.
Interestingly, the number of proms being televised has been cut back considerably this year, even though there is a full schedule of concerts for the first time for a few years. Before the pandemic proms were shown regularly on BBC4, usually on a Thursday, Friday and Sunday each week. In 2014 for example, 28 proms were broadcast on TV, and the magazine programme 'Proms Extra' was shown every Saturday night on BBC2 during the season.
This year there are just 22 proms being shown (I suspect this was originally going to be 21, but the Ukrainian Orchestra was hastily included for TV when it was added to the Proms programme). This will have reduced the options for including anything but the standard fare chosen by the BBC algorithms noted above.
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