Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2016 7:29:52 GMT -5
According to Pliable in his blog, On An Overgrown Path, Radio 3's demise is on the cards. Pliable concludes thus: I, too, tend to agree that the BBC will eventually be forced to become a commercial broadcaster, and it will be impossible to make a commercial case for Radio 3. Classic FM wins, hands down! Still, the BBC will have had a good run, even perhaps, hitting a century! Congratulations to all!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2016 8:13:50 GMT -5
Your Mr. Pliable reads like a loony to me, raving on about money money and nothing but money. The Third Programme was no problem for any one respectable in 1946, so it cannot possibly be one for the clean-limbed natives of to-day. Commercial creatures would have been tumbled down the stairs in former times.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2016 8:55:45 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Oct 27, 2016 11:02:54 GMT -5
Your Mr. Pliable reads like a loony to me, raving on about money money and nothing but money. The Third Programme was no problem for any one respectable in 1946, so it cannot possibly be one for the clean-limbed natives of to-day. Commercial creatures would have been tumbled down the stairs in former times. You can't run Radio 3 or any other part of BBC without money from somewhere. Anyway, as I've asked you before, what on earth are "clean-limbed natives"? I presume you to mean citizens of a particular country who ablutionary habits are such that they take showers regularly, although how such habits or indeed the absence thereof could possibly impact in any way upon the subject under discission is beyond me.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 11:21:44 GMT -5
There are different ways of running countries. The British way is not the only way. Living, as I do, in a country which has a generous Arts Budget administered by the Culture Ministry... which supports at least one opera/ballet theatre, and one orchestra in every major town or city throughout the nation, there is nothing incredible to me whatsoever in providing funding for the Arts as an element of the core infrastructure of the nation. It's a question of what is important. The BBC receives funding (in the form of an involuntary state-imposed tithe) for such cultural highlights as Top Gear, and The Great British Bake-Off. Are these more worthy of funding from central sources? Or merely Bakery & Circuses?
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Dec 24, 2016 11:35:15 GMT -5
The BBC receives funding (in the form of an involuntary state-imposed tithe) for such cultural highlights as Top Gear, and The Great British Bake-Off. Are these more worthy of funding from central sources? Or merely Bakery & Circuses? I rather think that, in so writing, you have answered your own question correctly! The very fact that the latter's now departing BBC for the world of televisual commerce would appear to endorse this most obvious negative answer. As to the amounts spent on Strictly Dumb Prancing, the "entertainment" value of whose hysterical audience reactions (which I'd first thought to be canned but then found are actually live) is arguably the lowest of all of its aspects, words fail me. Since everything in life and beyond seems now to have to manifest itself as part of a competitive environment, they might as well run a prime time show to see which of BBC's orchestras comes out top of the heap while BBC still has orchestras...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 13:26:23 GMT -5
I may well be wrong, since I have not lived in Britain for nearly 17 years (exactly 17 on Jan 6th 2017). However, I was under the understanding from the piffle that fills up the Daily Torygraph that Top Gear remains on BBC (and at ever-increasing budgetary desperation) with different presenters to the Chav Trio... while the BBC's pledge to have "sold" Bakeoff to a third-party producer was a lie inspired by the sale of Reval to the Teutonic Knights.... they are simply going to set up a new one under a different name. I believe the BBC has retained the same top-salaried presenters for its phoenix version, no? The departure of Roger Wrong from BBC R3 ought to have been a good thing.... but as usual with the BBC, some Old School Tie nitwits with no experience whatsoever have been recruited (at lusciouly generous salaries) to run it in his stead. So inexperienced indeed, that additional consultants who actually know something about it have had to be recruited to hold their hands.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 14:44:06 GMT -5
If I may address your points directly, Neil: I may well be wrong, since I have not lived in Britain for nearly 17 years (exactly 17 on Jan 6th 2017). However, I was under the understanding from the piffle that fills up the Daily Torygraph that Top Gear remains on BBC (and at ever-increasing budgetary desperation) with different presenters to the Chav Trio... while the BBC's pledge to have "sold" Bakeoff to a third-party producer was a lie inspired by the sale of Reval to the Teutonic Knights.... they are simply going to set up a new one under a different name. I believe the BBC has retained the same top-salaried presenters for its phoenix version, no? The departure of Roger Wrong from BBC R3 ought to have been a good thing.... but as usual with the BBC, some Old School Tie nitwits with no experience whatsoever have been recruited (at lusciouly generous salaries) to run it in his stead. So inexperienced indeed, that additional consultants who actually know something about it have had to be recruited to hold their hands. BBC Radio 3 has, at least in my opinion, improved considerably under the leadership of Alan Davey. If I may quote him directly: BBC Radio 3 Blog - Looking back, and looking aheadAs for entertainment, of course we need bread and circuses, and if this means Bake Off and Strictly/Top Gear, so be it! They might also be educational and informative!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 24, 2016 18:31:28 GMT -5
Frankly, Kleines, the BBC's decision to put the whole of Radio 3 (with the exception of the Listen Live facility) behind a paywall for overseas users in Disapproved Nations - such as my own location - has effectively terminated my listening to the station. It wouldn't matter who was in charge of R3 - if the signal has been blocked by spotty little jobsworths still living in the age of yesteryear, then I feel very disinclined to find ways around their block. Once they've shown me the middle digit, I really can't be bothered to invoke a VPN or other workaround - especially for such paltry fare?
How much effort is yet another Lunchtime Recital by another ex-Cambridge Choral Scholar worth? Crooning a first half of Schubert or Schumann with a voice from which all expressive elements have been surgically excised... leading on to a second half of French chanson in Schoolboy French... before treating us to Vaughan Williams and Quilter? Yet provided that Julius Drake (or whoever it is) keeps the lid of the piano superglued shut, at least some moments of the program might be heard.
If he could even spell 'Iphegenia', I would be even more impressed.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 26, 2016 13:06:11 GMT -5
We cannot but agree, Neil! Unanimity! Very much like The Third, BBC Radio 3's demise is on the cards, although, to be honest, I am not sure how Radio 3 will play out! The BBC’s new Charter will commence on New Year's Day, 1 January 2017, and last ten years. So by my calculation, the BBC will end, at least in its current form, in a decade. New technologies, and new commercial pressures, will make Radio 3 untenable. So here in Britain, let us enjoy the final decade! Even if you cannot join us in person, the happiest of New Years, and decades, to you all! Somerset House - New Year's Eve 2016
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Dec 27, 2016 12:12:17 GMT -5
We cannot but agree, Neil! Unanimity! Very much like The Third, BBC Radio 3's demise is on the cards, although, to be honest, I am not sure how Radio 3 will play out! The BBC’s new Charter will commence on New Year's Day, 1 January 2017, and last ten years. So by my calculation, the BBC will end, at least in its current form, in a decade. New technologies, and new commercial pressures, will make Radio 3 untenable. So here in Britain, let us enjoy the final decade! Even if you cannot join us in person, the happiest of New Years, and decades, to you all! Somerset House - New Year's Eve 2016Let us for the time being hope that BBC in general and Radio 3 in particular are not about to skate on thin ice towards such a demise, with or without the assistance of Fortnum & Mason and whether or not at Somerset House...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2016 14:04:38 GMT -5
The BBC has ten years. I doubt that they will broadcast anything from Somerset House in the future, ahinton, although you might well see the fireworks on the South Bank on New Year's Eve.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2016 20:33:38 GMT -5
ahinton wrote:
The rise of internet technology has meant there is increasingly little that distinguishes BBC R3 from an internet radio station broadcasting from a bedroom. They each have access to the same body of recorded music that exists. They are each free to commission new works, if they wish to.
The only distinguishing factor is the BBC's live orchestras and ensembles - yet can they really be said to offer value, for the vast budget they consume?
Returning to the remarks by Pliable which kleines c quoted in the OP:
This charmingly idealistic nostrum has two major factors militating against it. The first is that other than the composers featured by this New Music Centre, listener figures seem likely to start at abysmal, and grow progessively worse from thereon. But the second is even more amusing - the known inability of the modern composing community to tolerate each other's company for more than half an hour. Splenetic feuds (over funding, resources, airtime, and commission fees) are set to be the hallmark of such a 'Centre'. Readers will remember the hilarious scenes when Mr Beardy Bicycler set up his forum for new music. Within hours votes of No Confidence were rollicking through the message-boards, calls for solidarity with the Elk-herders of Norway appeared, and blacklists of performers working in Israel were posted. (Mysteriously members of the forum itself were still able to continue working in Israel, All-of-a-Sudden). The forum closed within half a year - even Beardy himself could not tolerate the rancour he'd summoned up. Despite the Committee Votes Condemning R3Ok and all associated with it, all of these unsavoury characters were back there within weeks.
Schwonder himself could not have devised anything more amusing.
|
|
|
Post by ahinton on Dec 28, 2016 1:20:09 GMT -5
ahinton wrote: The rise of internet technology has meant there is increasingly little that distinguishes BBC R3 from an internet radio station broadcasting from a bedroom. They each have access to the same body of recorded music that exists. They are each free to commission new works, if they wish to. The only distinguishing factor is the BBC's live orchestras and ensembles - yet can they really be said to offer value, for the vast budget they consume? That is indeed a significant distinguishing factor and my question would therefore have to be whether the value that the may be thought to offer is any greater or less than that offered by other major UK orchestras / ensembles, which is not one that I would care, or feel qualified, to try to answer, especially given that the licence fee funds the BBC's but not those others. As to the risk of the outbreak of squabbles between widely differing "factions" in the new music sector within the kind of scenario that kc posits, I fear that the nub of the problem here is the very factionalisation itself, to the extent that it is likely to surface irrespective of whatever structure might be imposed upon new music commissioning policy and the rest; without the establishment of more of a live-and-let-live atmosphere than might be thought currently to pertain, such a problem will likely remain. It's a sad fact of life, but it's the kind of thing that tends to manifest itself, for example, when avant-gardists of one kind or another argue rancourously over the writings on music by Sir Roger Scruton which, while certainly by no means beyond challenge, tend unwittingly to bring out the worst in such folk. Not to put too fine a point on it, but composers from, say, Wales (since you had alluded to that particular part of the world) would be better employed concentrating on writing as they wish (and there are two from Abertawe itself, the difference between whose compositional approaches and results are sufficient to suggest that they actually inhabit different planets) rather than on occasion pouring contempt on those who write quite differently (which one of them has an unfortunate habit of doing from time to time). One of the welcome things in new music today is the very diversity to which we can now become accustomed, but that should be a cause for celebration rather than an excuse for unsavoury side-taking. I should add that, if BBC R3 is to ensure "that (it) distinguishes (itself) from an internet radio station broadcasting from a bedroom", it will need to up its presentational game considerably and think of other ideas towards that end; I'm quite sure that it could do so if the will is there...
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 28, 2016 7:50:26 GMT -5
Yes, exactly. When British TV viewers pay for their TV Licence, is it fair or reasonable that the money they pay should be used to subsidise orchestras and choirs? Who don't appear on television. And yet viewers who fail to pay this "licence" can actually be sent to jail. Not even Mr Putin has anything so dastardly in his armoury.
. But what else would white, male, ex-Public-schoolboys with no noticeable skills do?
However, as I said earlier - the BBC has locked-out its overseas listeners behind a paywall for which no payment option is available. And thus I am a non-listener. I can see the schedules on line, and really there is nothing much I feel I am missing - the sad old Reithian claptrap of yesteryear.
|
|