End in sight for Classical Collection?

[amateur51]

The thing about the BBC, like so many big organisations, is that they buy in their thinking from elsewhere for short-cut 'solutions'. They don't actually do any themselves. But the BBC is unique: it ought to do its own thinking for its own circumstances. So, yes, it's a hard battle, but it isn't your battle which may be why you find it easier to walk away from it.

This is typical of so many organisations in the recent past, where Trustees/CEOs don't trust the very staff that they pay well to come up with the solutions and bright ideas, but prefer to 'out-source' the creativity, often to people who have become consultants precisely because they felt their talent was being wasted in ther stifling atmosphere of 'an organisation' with its endless targets and team meetings (aaaaiiiieeeeeee ). There may also be subtler if baser motives involved of course, but I agree with you french frank .

[aeolium]

Yeah, well-- if you do that, you'll still end up with a reply that's no more meaningful than my spoof letter was. (Just like that, really, minus the classical reference and more typos.)

Yes, that's entirely possible and even probable. People at R3 can take no notice of the complaints or pretend that they don't exist. The problem is that at a time when they are under sustained attack from a fair proportion of the right-wing press including the Murdoch empire, and don't appear to have a lot of friends in Parliament, the BBC can hardly afford to alienate those who should be its natural supporters (and certainly used to be). By coming up with sloppy presentation littered with errors, and rotten programming which insults the intelligence, they risk doing just that. You always make it sound as though the onus is on us, the listeners, to beg favours of the royalty of the BBC to deign to revise their programming, but that isn't really the case. If listeners are fed up with what is being offered, and no notice is taken of their concerns, then they end up just losing interest, and more than that, losing faith in the institution as a whole. I already listen much less to radio 3 than I used to. I think the more imaginative initiatives in programming are already being done by opera houses and theatres and orchestras in broadcasting live to the internet or to cinema. If R3 wants to knock up a sub-CFM morning programme then I've got far better things to listen to than that. If that sort of programming increasingly dominates much of the schedule on R3 then it's goodbye R3, as far as I'm concerned. But it's ultimately the BBC that has much more to lose than I.

[longinus]

At the end of the day, there's no forcing people to care what you think...persuasion is everything.

Yes and no. Of course I can't force anyone to change policy. (Or perhaps I should have written "Of course I can't force....".) But that's what pressure groups are for. Groups of people trying to persuade those who employ RW to reassess the merits of trying to compete with a commercially self-financing station by imitating what it does. This strikes me as the most dangerous thing the BBC can do - we've seen very heavyweight pressure on the Beeb to stop using its economies of scope and scale to compete with profit-making enterprises. We (as in we happy few, we band of brothers) can only hope to chuck our scruples and drachms into the scales on the side of more ambitious and less cowardly programming. But I know people who are relevant to these longer-term decisions, and I guess quite a lot of contributors and lurkers do too. Part of persuading them to look critically at the current "commercial" drive to steal listeners from CFM would be to show that we have brought these issues to the attention of R3 - and got no reply (which is where I came in).

[old khayyam]

the BBC that has much more to lose than I.

Wishful thinking. The bigger picture is that the BBC are now merely pawns in the battle for the minds of the British public. There must be no corner in which believers of serious artistic endeavour may hide and spawn new ideas for the betterment of mankind through appreciation of the arts.

[vinteuil]

It might first be a good idea to close off the repetitive & ill-informed gibberish now displayed in the Eternal Breakast & Classical Collection threads (maybe others) - they're too visible & just won't die naturally. Like it or not FoR3 is tarnished or enhanced by this forum & any BBC observers or potential new members will likely think the forum & FoR3 to be populated by pedantic, aged amateurs who've lost the plot. Incessant moaning here is bound to put many people off & will never do any good..

Thus 'Osborn' on the Proms board (thread "attention newcomers", message # 5 )

I am sure we are all grateful for her / his generous views here...

[aeolium]

I would hope people of all ages would be welcome to contribute here. As for amateurs, when it comes to listening to radio I would expect virtually everyone here to be an amateur - that is, not paid for doing so - unless they are among the very few professional radio critics. And what some people describe as pedantry, others would call accuracy.

I haven't noticed any gibberish in these threads. I do think the Breakfast programme long ago 'lost the plot', and I am increasingly losing interest in the plot of Classical Collection. If this forum is not in part for criticising the failings of R3, as well as praising its successes, then I'm not sure what it's for.