The suggestion on Feedback that Radio 3′s audience was ‘relatively’ small compared with Classic FM’s prompted the Controller to retort that this was not comparing like with like. Not exactly the same, that’s sure. Though a writer-in to Radio Times this week announces that he’s not too bothered about Radio 2 axeing Melodies for You as you can hear similar light music on Classic FM and <ahem> on Radio 3. Still, not quite like with like, no.

The Controller then enquired how many emails Feedback had received about Radio 3. Only 139? Paltry compared with the hundreds that Radio 3 received which far exceeded that number. ‘And you,’ he added accusingly, ‘have been calling for responses for a fortnight.’ Like with like? Not really, was it?

For a start, Feedback is on Radio 4 so something like 85%-90% of the listeners to the programme wouldn’t have been Radio 3 listeners anyway. How many times during the fortnight was the subject matter trailed? And, if it comes to that, how many times was this programme – which would have been of prime interest to Radio 3 listeners – trailed on Radio 3? Thought not.

Whereas everyone listening to the Radio 3 programmes is a Radio 3 listener and in contrast to a sporadic trail on Radio 4 for the Feedback programme people are urged to email, text, phone and tweet every ten seconds or so on Radio 3. Like with like?

Never mind the hundreds who sent emails to the programmes, how many tens of thousands listening at the same time didn’t email in?

And another thing. If only one enlightened soul spoke up and said the popularisation of Radio 3 is a gruesome mistake, would that person be ‘wrong’? As the BBC keeps saying, numbers aren’t the main concern. Good. If only the main concern was for the music, and high artistic and intellectual standards.

It seems that pronouncing foreign languages correctly is regarded by Radio 3 as the equivalent of a public school accent, and – specialists excepted – should therefore be avoided, like  ‘complicated musicological and biographical detail’, which is banned from the new Essential Classics programme, scheduled for the autumn. It’s intimidating. It makes listeners feel inferior and excluded. It’s an affectation.

So – Psyché et Éros? Listeners won’t grasp Psee-SHAY ay Ay-ROSS. You have to change the sounds as little as possible – SEE-kay ay EE-ros – and attentive listeners, at least (there may be some), will be able to guess what it means. Especially if you’ve already told them it’s the story of Cupid and Psyche.

Of course, it could just mean that presenters who have no knowledge of the language also don’t bother to check.

In the spirit of the new comedy-filled Radio 3, we offer the newly announced First Night of the Proms, first half programme:

Weir

Brahms

and

Liszt

… Well, that would explain all the hilarity emanating from the station these days!

The Sony Radio Academy awards 2011 -  and the nominations are announced. How these nominations are arrived at is not quite anyone’s guess: someone knows, for sure. But not us.

Radio 3, as is not unusual, has but a paltry haul.

Between the Ears – a much favoured Sony feature – is once again nominated, this year for ‘The Haunted Moustache’ (great name, by the way, on a par with Auden’s ‘The Guilty Vicarage’).

Jazz on 3, also no newcomer to the nominations, gets a nod.

And that’s it. Oh, wait, what’s this? Radio 3 nominated for UK Station of the Year? Well, that is a mystery. Only two category nominations yet it’s in line for Station of the Year? Sort of  ‘Great station, pity about the programmes’?

There are two depressing aspects to the story plastered over the press today: ‘Radio 3′s Wuthering Heights to turn the airwaves blue!’

The first is that the press hordes think this dire publicity stunt makes good copy. Like the eejits they are, they can write: “Cathy and Heathcliff will disrupt Radio 3′s usually genteel air on Sunday evening”. Eh?  ‘Usually genteel air on Sunday evening’?! Well, stap me vitals, wasn’t the so-called f-word last heard only two days ago, in a play introduced as having ‘strong language and scenes of a sexual nature’?  Oooh, mum!

The second is that the programme makers stoop to that level just to attract attention – by which I mean making a sensational story out of it, trying to hit the headlines with its ‘blue airwaves’.

The source was a radiotimes.com ‘Exclusive’, posted at 12.01am this morning to get the press coverage. “BBC Radio 3 is to broadcast an adaptation of Wuthering Heights containing a number of strong expletives, with Cathy and Heathcliff both using the f-word, Radio Times can disclose.” Radio Times can disclose? Oh, my dear paws! Oh, my fur and whiskers! Where will it end?

Radio 3′s Sunday play, with and without strong language, gets about 100,000 listeners. Regular listeners won’t be shocked (there’s usually a warning about the language – who was it said the main difference between a Radio 3 play and a Radio 4 play was the swearing on 3?) or bat on about ‘the watershed’ and ‘young people’. They’ll judge critically whether they think updating with obscenities works in the context, whether it adds to or subtracts from the adaptation. You know, grown-up, like.

If the ‘wider audience’ that Radio 3 is chasing is really childish enough to fall for this bit of cheap fluff, please let them stay away.

The BBC Trust’s review on Radio 3 is remarkable for the disjunction between the evidence and the conclusions, between the stated aim (to reach all listeners) and the effect (to take away from the listeners who have least).

Radio 3′s audience, like Radio 4′s, is too middle class, too well off, too white, too south of England (they could have added too well-educated with a keen intelligence, but they didn’t). Radio 3 must be more accessible and welcoming, particularly in the breakfast and drivetime slots, to those who find it a bit hard going.

But … what do these potential new listeners listen to at the moment? Do they eat their breakfast in silence but for the crunch of cornflakes? Perhaps they prefer that. Or maybe they listen to Radio 2, or Radio 5 Live, or 6 Music, or even Radio 1, or even even … Classic FM. Perhaps they watch breakfast television. So Radio 3′s appeal must be extended so that they have even more choice, while those who came to Radio 3 for its expertise, its seriousness, its quiet authority (yes, even at breakfast time) must now make do with light entertainment or switch off. “For whosoever hath, to him shall be given …” So much for reaching all audiences.

In response to several submissions and many listener comments that the breakfast programme was imitating Classic FM, the Trust replied that they found ‘no compelling evidence’ of loss of quality or distinctiveness. Not even though the details were undeniable and spelled out. But they couldn’t acknowledge that, could they, since they were going to allow management to extend the policy with even more determination.

Let’s say it more clearly: “Radio 3, you are cynically targeting the Classic FM audience, trying to capture the listeners who like light classical music, nothing ‘intimidating’, and some jolly chat first thing in the morning.”

At best, it’s just nannyish spoonfeeding. At worst, it’s an attempt to keep the BBC’s ratings lead over commercial radio and, apparently, to get people to listen to more radio. For goodness sake, on average people are listening to 22 hours of radio each week, and viewing the same amount of television. That’s almost two entire days of every week. Shouldn’t they be encouraging people to do something more useful with their lives?

We’re said to be a ‘small minority’ in our tastes and requirements. But shouldn’t the BBC be trying to ‘grow’ an audience like us rather than pinch audiences from elsewhere?

Where on earth did the idea come from to put a comedy show on Radio 3 on Christmas Evening? No, not a comedy show but this comedy show? What relevance did it have to Radio 3 or its listeners? Well, yes, it was ‘a test of cultural knowledge, musical skills (or lack of)’, but the emphasis was definitely on the ‘ lack of’ which briskly disposed of the relevance. None of the comedian participants seemed to have had much interest in the supposed Radio 3 content.

The audience, too, was a general BBC radio game show audience who applied in the usual way for the advertised free tickets (presumably on the basis that it was billed as a festive comedy quiz). Did they find it funny? Perhaps not funny enough because it seems that a laugh track was added. Well, that explains the spontaneous bursts of hilarity every time anyone said anything.

The fact that it was necessary to add the laughter afterwards confirms one’s faith in the intelligence of the general public. The Radio 3 audience deserved something better. Like listening to a humble CD?

Back in 2005 the record industry kicked up a fuss about Radio 3′s pioneering free downloads of the Beethoven symphonies. Unfair competition, they said. As a result the BBC Trust decreed that BBC music programme downloads could contain no more than short clips of the music. That’s why the weekly podcast of the five hours of Composer of the Week is reduced to one hour: most of the music has been edited out.

The Trust claimed that people might build up entire collections from free downloads and rejected even the suggestion that such downloads could be limited in number. At, say, half a dozen per year, it would take quite a while to build up a collection.

Now it looks as if the record labels are softening their line. Radio 3′s latest weekly podcasts will contain complete tracks. What explains this change of heart?

Look no further: the podcast tracks are from the industry’s own Classical Chart – itself a marketing tool to promote its best-selling latest releases. So not only does Radio 3 now give airtime to some of the popular crossover discs which, prior to its regular weekly charts features would not have been played on the station at all, it even helps out with the commercial marketing of the discs.  In what sense is this not product placement in the same way that putting a bottle of tomato ketchup with its label facing the camera is product placement, and not allowed on BBC television?

If this latest move isn’t in violation of the BBC’s Charter it ought to be. But at least it makes a change from the incessant on-air marketing of BBC products.

We recently floated the idea that if the BBC wanted to save money – why not close down the marketing division and stop spending on the expensive and relentless on-air trailing that drives viewers and listeners alike nuts?

In a press release today, the Director-General has announced a slimming down of the BBC Executive Board (that’s the top managers to the likes of us).  Among the key changes announced is the closure of Marketing, Communications and Audiences as a separate division. Commiserations to the not-long-arrived Director, though she will probably get a generous pay-off (if not quite as generous as that for the soon-to-depart Deputy Director-General, who gets £2m to go with his £3.8m pension pot). However, hopefully the whole tacky business of on-air trailing will be similarly downgraded?

We note that the organisation Voice of the Listener and Viewer made special mention of programme trails in its response to the recent Trust consultation:

While many listeners may value the trailing of future programmes and we appreciate the use of trailing as a means of attracting new audiences, we consider that the practice has now gone too far. At every programme break there is at least one trail. Trails are often elaborate adverts or chats about the content of a future programme. These are both distracting and some times too long.

Rather more mildly put than some would have done, but, yes, especially on Radio 3 where trails are not confined to programme breaks.

It sounds like very good news. The BBC has announced an ambitious season devoted to Shakespeare for 2012. Not the least interesting aspect is that there will be live performances of the plays (so far unnamed). Just as encouraging is the fact that the broadcasts will be on BBC One and BBC Two, both mainstream channels.

This kind of thing is exactly what we had in mind when we responded to the Director General’s strategy review by saying we didn’t think that the ideas for ‘ambitious drama’ on BBC Two sounded very ambitious. We wanted classic drama and it looks as if this is what we’ll be getting.

Only one question mark: will all the resources for drama be taken up by this one project? If the BBC ever gets back into its stride again, what we’d like to see is the return of the regular classic play, even if it’s only once a month. Less ambitious, perhaps, but more frequent, with the hope that it will build up a new interest in theatre-going. And, of course, while we’re at it, let’s have a regular monthly concert on BBC Two as well, as encouragement for new concert-goers.