RAJAR - Radio 3 in Decline?

[Vox Humana]

So in spite of the fact that Radio 3 continues to ape Classic FM's Breakfast Show format & style its commercial rival steams ahead.

Surely the message is clear - you need to provide a distinct, distinctive and positive alternative.

Well, that's the nub, isn't it? If I want to hear a broadcasting style like Classic FM's, I go to Classic FM. I do not need a rival aping the same style. I definitely agree that there is room for "a distinct, distinctive and positive alternative". I know what I would like: an end to tweets, chit-chat and condescension and more focus on playing music, with commentaries pitched at about the level one would expect to read in a decent CD insert. Whether that would regain R3's lost audience I am not in a position to know. I wonder how deeply they have researched potential audience reaction to different style/formats.

[Dave2002]

I just don't know what is being measured now. Does the R3 figure include people listening via iPlayer or Internet means?

In the article it mentioned something like 45 million people listen to radio - but does that mean they turn the radio on once a week, or month, or they listen for hours each day, or what? I'm sure they have some sort of methodology for estimating the figures, but I really wonder if the figures are themselves not totally meaningful.

It does make sense to have some sort of handle on what people are "consuming" though, as if very few people are listening, either live or in on demand mode, there would be little point in providing the service.

[Vox Humana]

It does make sense to have some sort of handle on what people are "consuming" though, as if very few people are listening, either live or in on demand mode, there would be little point in providing the service.

I really do wonder how far they have, though - RAJAR or not. I remember once agreeing to take part in BBC audience research, logging my listening habits over a week. It consisted almost entirely of Radio 3. The person who called to collect my data asked me whether I would be willing to take part on a regular basis. I agreed, but never heard another word. I suspect the data I gave them wasn't what they wanted to read.

[french frank]

I just don't know what is being measured now. Does the R3 figure include people listening via iPlayer or Internet means?

It includes everyone listening to the station 'live', whatever the platform. The On Demand figures are collected separately.

In the article it mentioned something like 45 million people listen to radio - but does that mean they turn the radio on once a week, or month, or they listen for hours each day, or what?

How can you generalise? Some listen to it ten hours a day every week, others listen for five minutes. Averaged out, the figures show the average of all the different lengths of time that different listeners tune in.

Each week there is a different panel of, I think, about 2,500 people (a total sample this last quarter of 26,023 - much bigger than the average opinion poll sample), and the quarter (12-13 weeks) averages out the figures collected each week. So it's unlikely that they're going to find, every week, 2,500 people who only listen to radio for 5 minutes.

If, week after week, and then quarter after quarter, you're getting results which are roughly similar for each station, the probability is that you are getting a fairly accurate picture. But the larger the audience (for any given station) the less likelihood there is of inaccuracy. I.e. it's 100-1 (not to scale!) that Radio 2 has between 13m-15m listeners each week. With a station like Radio 3, 'fairly accurate' has the emphasis on the 'fairly. And when you get down to a single programme, like Breakfast, it's more 'fairly fairly' accurate. But being a daily programme it will be more accurate than for a programme which is on for an hour once a week. Theoretically, it could have no measurable audience at all some weeks. BUT, that doesn't mean that in reality it had no listeners - just that the methodology can't cope very well with measuring it.

[aeolium]

Here is the Grauniad's take on the figures:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/03/bbc-6-music-radio-3-rajars-digital

"Cultist"? "Public service broadcasting stodge"? Journalists

Ed: Do these figures mean that rather than trying to close down 6 Music a while back the BBC should have been trying to close R3?

[french frank]

Here is the Grauniad's take on the figures:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/03/bbc-6-music-radio-3-rajars-digital

"Cultist"? "Public service broadcasting stodge"? Journalists

Ed: Do these figures mean that rather than trying to close down 6 Music a while back the BBC should have been trying to close R3?

I was reading another article by Matt Deegan yesterday which largely (if inadvertently) supported my view: digital listening on various platforms - all now included in the Rajar figures - has grown, so that half the home listening (where most listening is still done) is on digital devices, and among younger audiences (6 Music has an average age of 36) digital listening is higher. In a growth area it was only a matter of time before the highest digital passed the lowest analogue station.

But, oh - those pop-oriented journalists' opinions. 'Cultist'? A writer and he can't even spell 'elitist'! But he's surely depressingly representative of an equally growing section of the public which thinks that popular ciulture is, not the equal, but miles better than yer 'high culture'.

As for the 'PR coup': one of the major reasons given for closing 6 Music was its low reach/low public awareness. The amount of publicity that the 'pop-oriented' press then gave it solved both problems overnight. Who would fight for Radio 3? Only some obscure 'cultist' cranks, evidently.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But he's surely depressingly representative of an equally growing section of the public which thinks that popular culture is, not the equal, but miles better than yer 'high culture'.

That's so true. In fact they often assume that only popular culture exists.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's so true. In fact they often assume that only popular culture exists.

Inverted snobbery has long been around; it's only since consumerism got a grip that it has become culturally respectable.

[Hitch]

The Friends of Radio Three must be a cult because I didn't realise it was one. Classic brainwashing!

[french frank]

The Friends of Radio Three must be a cult because I didn't realise it was one. Classic brainwashing!

Cultism: A type of affected elegance of style used in Spanish literature in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, and particularly associated with the poet Góngora y Argote. A cultist is a denizen of Gaia's spinning globe who frees the pensive sprites from out the prison of the mind in such a style.

Cultist as an adjective seems to be a modern usage: I can't find it.

[teamsaint]

Inverted snobbery has long been around; it's only since consumerism got a grip that it has become culturally respectable.

you are quite right of course.

Inverted snobbery, as a respectable pastime, has been completely ruined by middle class journalists getting hold of it, and selling it to the upper middle classes.


They just have to have it ALL, those people.

[vinteuil]

Inverted snobbery, as a respectable pastime, has been completely ruined by middle class journalists getting hold of it, and selling it to the upper middle classes.

... some of us have never been impressed by, or infected by, "inverted snobbery". Snobbery tout court is good enough for us...

[Angle]

Perhaps what is needed is some downright, plain speaking. Jonathan Miller managed it in The Times today. Here, however, is a report from the DT:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11008868/BBC-is-run-by-media-studies-twerps-Sir-Jonathan-Miller-says.html

[french frank]

Perhaps what is needed is some downright, plain speaking. Jonathan Miller managed it in The Times today. Here, however, is a report from the DT:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...ller-says.html

Jonathan Miller: "The idea of doing a 15–part series on the history of medicine now is absolutely inconceivable. What you'd have to do is do a pitch to someone with a degree in media studies – juvenile twerps."

'Earlier this year, comedy producer John Lloyd also complained about problems with current executives, claiming those in charge are now drawn from "scheduling, marketing and car parking". '

'John Cleese, speaking as Monty Python reunited for a final series of live shows this summer, said the corporation was made up of a "new echelon of BBC executives who can’t write, who can’t direct, who are not really associated with shows" who were nevertheless "supposed to know what they’re doing.” '

"A spokesman for the BBC said: "This is not a description of the BBC we recognise. We're focused on making great TV and radio which audiences tell us they love."

There seems to be a valid point that 'BBC commissioning editors' aren't experts in what they have responsibility for commissioning. From experience , I'd say that with the BBC you are seldom talking to anyone who really has their finger on the pulse of what's happening. The higher you go, the less they know (obvious but unsatisfactory). On the rare occasions that you are, that person is the one who is ultimately responsible for what you're complaining about

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

There seems to be a valid point that 'BBC commissioning editors' aren't experts in what they have responsibility for commissioning. From experience , I'd say that with the BBC you are seldom talking to anyone who really has their finger on the pulse of what's happening. The higher you go, the less they know (obvious but unsatisfactory).

For one brief moment, I thought you were talking about The Cabinet: