The Aims

Radio 3's service licence states: "Around its core proposition of classical music, its speech-based programming should inform and educate the audience about music and culture. Jazz, world music, drama, the arts and ideas, and religious programming should feature in its output."

Friends of Radio 3 celebrates BBC Radio 3 as, first and foremost, a broadcaster of Western classical music and the spoken arts, offering coverage of a wide range of musical and cultural content, including jazz and global traditional musics, and drawing on the expertise of informed contributors. We applaud Radio 3's commitment to live music, to commissioning and broadcasting new music and new drama, and to nurturing new performing talent.

Aims:

  1. We will press Radio 3 to be distinctive, maintaining high artistic and intellectual standards; to recognise that the content will by its nature attract small audiences; and to acknowledge an obligation to build an audience for the content rather than alter the content to build an audience.
  2. We will engage with the BBC and question the policies which we consider jeopardise Radio 3's remit to deliver a high quality service of classical music, spoken arts and a range of intelligent cultural coverage; we will convey listener concerns to BBC management.

Details of our campaigns to date will be added here in the coming weeks.