History of Radio 3 (1998 to the present)
Things can only get…
Kenyon's five-year contract was up, and in November 1998 Roger Wright took over the Controllership. A year later, multimillionaire TV mogul Greg Dyke became BBC Director-General. Dyke, in his early days, had made his name by introducing the glove-puppet Roland Rat to the independent television station TV-am. "Dumber-down" and "populist" were two of the expressions used of him.
But he was a shrewd businessman. A supporter of the Blairite Labour party, he was, according to the Guardian newspaper, determined to "shake off the BBC's white, male, middle-class culture". Crikey! That'll be a smack in the north-and-south for the Radio 3 toffs…
The scale of the further changes at R3 could hardly have been predicted at the start. A brand new programme, Late Junction, was introduced, Monday to Thursday, in the late evenings. Billed as "covering everything from plainchant to post modern", it turned out to be an "eclectic" [sic] sequence of music — ethnic, funky folk-pop, quirkily attractive classical pieces (unfamiliar, apparently, to non-classical audiences) with a slight whiff of lifestyle aromatherapy to it. The media stirred. What was this? That old dinosaur Radio 3 giving prime listening time to non-classical music, and mind-blowing stuff with oodles of street cred at that?
It also marked the start of Radio 3's serious commitment to "World music" and was clearly aimed at a new audience. Another World music programme, World Routes, was given a Saturday afternoon slot, with local hero Andy Kershaw (controversially axed from pop station Radio 1 a few months earlier), now billed as a guest presenter. A programme of light music — again with popular presenter Brian Kay — was given a prime Sunday afternoon slot. Broadway shows and film music were given a special programme too. Only classical music on Radio 3? Perish the thought! That was then. This is now.
Brave, exciting, to be applauded... But, oh, no! What a nightmare! Roger wrung his hands in despair. Why did they not write about the classical music which still formed more than 80 per cent of output? It was baffling, since the entire night-time listening, from midnight until 6 am was still classical. And nine to five during the week — all of it classical... well, most of it anyway. The early evening concert was almost always classical. But, 'ere, 'ang on a mo ... the hip, pop-generation media are cheering ...
So the Late Junction programme was extended to almost two hours and became more pop oriented. The late night jazz programme was dropped — but only to be reincarnated in the form of Jazz Line-Up on Saturday afternoons (just before Jazz Record Requests), and a second new show, Jazz Legends, on Friday afternoons. And with the eclectic [sic] experimental pop-rock show Mixing It on Sundays, Radio 3 was into the real world at last. The media loved it, oh, how they loved it — and the station's listening figures plummeted.
The 2.277 million of the first quarter of 1999 hit 1.920 million in March 2001 — a loss of 357,000 listeners, over 15.5% of its existing audience. Leaving aside all the new shows which had wiped out a large part of the primetime classical programmes, the classical listeners didn't appreciate the folk-pop first thing in the morning. Or jazz and show tunes regularly mixed into their classical programmes.
Then, in a brilliant master-stroke, Roger hit on the idea of giving Kershaw a bit of an eclectic [sic] pop-rock World show of his own, also late night, taking up the "vacant" (i.e. not filled by Late Junction) Friday slot. World Routes, as often as not, was now purveying global pop music. The media were beside themselves with delight; R3's new programmes stood proudly alongside the mass audience stations as award-winners — and the classical music listeners began to revolt.
Now — summer 2003 — with a modest rally in listeners, Radio 3 remains the only major radio station which has fewer listeners now than it had at the beginning of 1999, in spite of the appeal to a wider jazz-World-pop-light audience. The Wright solution? More of the same ... Kershaw and Mixing It to be further extended in the autumn, eating further into the primetime classical programming, and the cabaret duo of Kit and the Widow to have regular appearances on Saturday evenings, when there isn't opera.
Cue FoR3…
But he was a shrewd businessman. A supporter of the Blairite Labour party, he was, according to the Guardian newspaper, determined to "shake off the BBC's white, male, middle-class culture". Crikey! That'll be a smack in the north-and-south for the Radio 3 toffs…
The scale of the further changes at R3 could hardly have been predicted at the start. A brand new programme, Late Junction, was introduced, Monday to Thursday, in the late evenings. Billed as "covering everything from plainchant to post modern", it turned out to be an "eclectic" [sic] sequence of music — ethnic, funky folk-pop, quirkily attractive classical pieces (unfamiliar, apparently, to non-classical audiences) with a slight whiff of lifestyle aromatherapy to it. The media stirred. What was this? That old dinosaur Radio 3 giving prime listening time to non-classical music, and mind-blowing stuff with oodles of street cred at that?
It also marked the start of Radio 3's serious commitment to "World music" and was clearly aimed at a new audience. Another World music programme, World Routes, was given a Saturday afternoon slot, with local hero Andy Kershaw (controversially axed from pop station Radio 1 a few months earlier), now billed as a guest presenter. A programme of light music — again with popular presenter Brian Kay — was given a prime Sunday afternoon slot. Broadway shows and film music were given a special programme too. Only classical music on Radio 3? Perish the thought! That was then. This is now.
Brave, exciting, to be applauded... But, oh, no! What a nightmare! Roger wrung his hands in despair. Why did they not write about the classical music which still formed more than 80 per cent of output? It was baffling, since the entire night-time listening, from midnight until 6 am was still classical. And nine to five during the week — all of it classical... well, most of it anyway. The early evening concert was almost always classical. But, 'ere, 'ang on a mo ... the hip, pop-generation media are cheering ...
So the Late Junction programme was extended to almost two hours and became more pop oriented. The late night jazz programme was dropped — but only to be reincarnated in the form of Jazz Line-Up on Saturday afternoons (just before Jazz Record Requests), and a second new show, Jazz Legends, on Friday afternoons. And with the eclectic [sic] experimental pop-rock show Mixing It on Sundays, Radio 3 was into the real world at last. The media loved it, oh, how they loved it — and the station's listening figures plummeted.
The 2.277 million of the first quarter of 1999 hit 1.920 million in March 2001 — a loss of 357,000 listeners, over 15.5% of its existing audience. Leaving aside all the new shows which had wiped out a large part of the primetime classical programmes, the classical listeners didn't appreciate the folk-pop first thing in the morning. Or jazz and show tunes regularly mixed into their classical programmes.
Then, in a brilliant master-stroke, Roger hit on the idea of giving Kershaw a bit of an eclectic [sic] pop-rock World show of his own, also late night, taking up the "vacant" (i.e. not filled by Late Junction) Friday slot. World Routes, as often as not, was now purveying global pop music. The media were beside themselves with delight; R3's new programmes stood proudly alongside the mass audience stations as award-winners — and the classical music listeners began to revolt.
Now — summer 2003 — with a modest rally in listeners, Radio 3 remains the only major radio station which has fewer listeners now than it had at the beginning of 1999, in spite of the appeal to a wider jazz-World-pop-light audience. The Wright solution? More of the same ... Kershaw and Mixing It to be further extended in the autumn, eating further into the primetime classical programming, and the cabaret duo of Kit and the Widow to have regular appearances on Saturday evenings, when there isn't opera.
Cue FoR3…