New r3 schedule and how it affects this particular part of the forum...

[Globaltruth]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/aboutthebbc/entries/27517e7d-3e1c-4fba-8f29-cc5e84457fac

Fridays, Late Junction, a programme that explores the experimental boundaries of music, will move to a single two hour programme in a key slot on Friday evening, to kick start BBC Radio 3’s weekend for listeners. It will run from 11pm-1am..... Music Planet will move from its Friday evening slot in turn, to Saturday nights from midnight-1am.

End of an era for LJ.

Look forward to LK partying it up on a Sat night l


To conclude, r3’s cultural tzar says :

These plans are designed to ensure we remain distinctive. BBC Radio 3 must always be a place to be stimulated by everything from core classical to ambient and neo-classical, world to jazz, sound art to electronica, not forgetting Slow Radio, as well as a breadth of arts content from dramas to topical arts, documentaries and poetry, a place to escape the frenzy of the everyday

Great sentiment, shame he only shows it by making a token commitment to anything other than ‘business than usual’

[Quarky]

Thanks Globaltruth.

As I read it, Late Junction will only be broadcast once a week on Friday, and Jazz Now and GS Jazz will be "rested":

From Monday to Wednesday in our After Dark zone we will establish a new classical music programme designed for late night listening. In addition to the new After Dark classical programme, Unclassified presented by Elizabeth Alker, will become a permanent strand Thursday evenings from 11.30pm-12.30am. The show explores a range of music that can be called neo classical and ambient but which remain rather hard to classify, as the name suggests. We’ve had a really positive response since we aired the initial short series and I’m delighted the programme will now have a more permanent home.

On Fridays, Late Junction, a programme that explores the experimental boundaries of music, will move to a single two hour programme in a key slot on Friday evening, to kick start BBC Radio 3’s weekend for listeners. It will run from 11pm-1am. Jazz will continue to be well represented through Jazz Record Requests, J to Z, and on BBC Sounds which will bring together the best of Jazz performances and programmes from across the BBC. We will be resting Jazz Now and Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz. Music Planet will move from its Friday evening slot in turn, to Saturday nights from midnight-1am. We will also be making use of our unique partnership with The European Broadcasting Union to expand the Sunday night In Concert programme by 30 minutes, bringing listeners more of the very best of European music-making.

[Serial_Apologist]

Jazz will continue to be well represented through Jazz Record Requests, J to Z, and on BBC Sounds which will bring together the best of Jazz performances and programmes from across the BBC. We will be resting Jazz Now and Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz.

I'm very sorry to learn that Geoffrey's aimable "hellooooo" will no longer be heard, and that Jazz Now, with Soweto's enlightened presence the programme that has really come to set the standard for new jazz and brought huge enjoyment through its guests and their revealing contributions, is to be dispensed with.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm very sorry to learn that Geoffrey's aimable "hellooooo" will no longer be heard, and that Jazz Now, with Soweto's enlightened presence the programme that has really come to set the standard for new jazz and brought huge enjoyment through its guests and their revealing contributions, is to be dispensed with.

Yes - the GSJ theme tune, and that welcome, has often retored my spirits after many a disappointing H&N. I look forward to seeing to see how well Music Planet fills the spot, but I shall miss GS.

(H&N also to be renamed The New Music Show, and with new presenters - I'm reminded of when Spirit of the Age was replaced by the Early Music Show, with a considerable dip in interest as far as I was concerned.)

[johncorrigan]

I assume I no longer form part of the R3 target demographic.

[Quarky]

I assume I no longer form part of the R3 target demographic.

Resonance FM will hopefully fill the gap........

[CallMePaul]

World Music coverage has been decimated in recent years and I cannot be alone in missing World Routes. It is being halved again to make way for a diminished Late Junction, which itself is to be decimated to make way for what I suspect will be easy listening on Mon-Wed. It is getting more and more difficult to buy world music CDs and other listening opportunities, including live performances, are becoming rarer, at least in this part of the country.

I am rarely able to listen to R3 on Saturday evenings so the switch in time means that another listener will be lost to the programme. I assume that these changes will take place in the week following the last night of the Proms.

[MrGongGong]

Sad news indeed

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/mar/15/bbc-radio-3-late-junction-carries-john-peel-spirit-into-digital-age

[Quarky]

World Music coverage has been decimated in recent years and I cannot be alone in missing World Routes. It is being halved again to make way for a diminished Late Junction, which itself is to be decimated to make way for what I suspect will be easy listening on Mon-Wed. It is getting more and more difficult to buy world music CDs and other listening opportunities, including live performances, are becoming rarer, at least in this part of the country.

I am rarely able to listen to R3 on Saturday evenings so the switch in time means that another listener will be lost to the programme. I assume that these changes will take place in the week following the last night of the Proms.

It seems to me that Radio Stations which broadcast over the air waves is increasingly limited to programmes that may appeal to a wide swathe of the population. Specialist music appealing to minorities is more likely to be found in Internet stations - obviously a minimum of hardware is required without access to large transmitters- just a hook up to the Internet.

For example: https://soasradio.org/ Run by Univ. London, where Lucy Duran apparently hangs out.

I can't imagine that these changes, effectively limiting R3 to Classical music, are going to improve the quality of Classical music broadcast. Obviously there's going to be more Classical music, but of a greatly dumbed down variety, as far as I can see at the moment.

[Jazzrook]

Could the planned decimation of jazz, world music & Late Junction on Radio 3 have anything to do with the new classical digital station Scala Radio?

JR

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It seems to me that Radio Stations which broadcast over the air waves is increasingly limited to programmes that may appeal to a wide swathe of the population. Specialist music appealing to minorities is more likely to be found in Internet stations - obviously a minimum of hardware is required without access to large transmitters- just a hook up to the Internet.

I think that you're certainly right.

I can't imagine that these changes, effectively limiting R3 to Classical music, are going to improve the quality of Classical music broadcast. Obviously there's going to be more Classical music, but of a greatly dumbed down variety, as far as I can see at the moment.

Exactly!

[Serial_Apologist]

Sad news indeed

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...to-digital-age

Excellent article by Luke Turner, for which many thanks GG.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Excellent article by Luke Turner, for which many thanks GG.

[Globaltruth]

And a couple of (totally subjective) quotes from below the line on that well written article...

To be honest there are, and always have been, far better informed radio shows and podcasts out there where challenging experimental music has been nurtured, regardless of any ministrations from "Auntie". The BBC, and Radio 3 in particular, have never appreciated the importance of this musical form so it's hardly a galloping surprise to find it retrench itself again. The same thing happened many moons ago with Mixing It (hat tip to Mark Russell and the late great Robert Sandall). I'd suggest tuning in to Fractal Meat On A Spongy Bone on NTS, Do or DIY on WFMU, or Late Lunch with Out To Lunch on Resonance, to name but three of many estimable alternatives. Leave Radio 3 listeners to snooze their way through Handel and Mozart.

I miss Mixing it, but I could imagine it might have had a relatively limited appeal so was vulnerable to being axed by a corporation losing its way, but Late Junction? Everything in the article is true, but if you haven’t spent the last 20 years tuning in you may not realise it just delivers the most wonderful listening, familiar things given new life by juxtaposition with stuff you would never otherwise have heard of, let alone heard. Late, intimate and musical, it’s a friend when you need that friend that is nowhere else to be found. If the bbc is stupid enough to throw it out, surely it will find a better home

At least they’re not canning it completely, but, as a regular listener over the last 20 years, I can’t join in with the unilateral blind, acclaim but wholeheartedly agree on the need for a regular slot accompanied by continuing aural evolution.

wonder if the budgetary needs may explain the decision - for a while LJ has been outsourced to (the now appropriately named) Reduced Listening. I think (tbc) Unclassified is made in house, so may be seen as cheaper (money from different pots syndrome).
Perhaps the new Unclassified program will morph into a slightly different LJ over time.

There have been stirrings of protest - not enough so far to cause anything except a slight ripple amongst the paperwork on Alan Davey’s desk - a petition which, last time I looked, had 5 signatures, and about 200 tweets.

[french frank]

Sad news indeed

https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...to-digital-age

What is striking is that music-lovers who bewail the loss of Late Junction seem also to a man [sic] to share the view that it is the only programme on R3 worth listening to. It hardens my view that it never was never a very good fit with R3. Especially after 6 Music was launched. And as vespare suggested, it doesn’t even appear as if classical fans are going to benefit from the loss of the non-classical programmes. Just more of the airy fairy ambient easy listening.