Radio listeners in uproar over presenter changes

BBC Radio 3 has relegated one of its best presenters to the afternoon graveyard slot with this statement: Ian Skelly joins Afternoon Concert from 12th April. He joins a presenting line up including Penny Gore, Tom McKinney, and Fiona Talkington. 

Skelly is the urbane co-presenter of Radio 3’s mid-morning weekday show. He will now be buried in a post-lunch snooze.

Listeners have been writing in anger to Slippedisc and other outlets.

Alan Davey, Controller, BBC Radio 3 says: “We wanted to make the most of two much-loved voices on Radio 3 and refresh the daytime schedule. Georgia is a hugely experienced R3 presenter and producer who will bring a range of cultural knowledge to the morning schedules, while Ian will bring his proven skills to the important afternoon sequence.”

Georgia Mann has been making arts programmes at the BBC since 2008. After studying English Literature at Cambridge University, she began her radio career as a reporter at BBC Three Counties Radio, going on to produce Radio 4’s Front Row for several years.

She has become known for her work presenting Radio 3’s Breakfast programme, as well as lunchtime and evening concerts and a range of programmes on Radio 3, including Words and Music. She will continue to present live events, including the Proms.

Broadcaster and writer Ian Skelly has been a familiar voice on BBC Radio 3 for the past 20 years, presenting various programmes on the station, covering a wide range of repertoire from early music to contemporary.

In Israel, meanwhile, there are similar protest over the morning classics show on Kol Hamusica, where new boss  Omer Frenkel (formerly on Army Radio) has brought in a presenter, Alex Anski, who cannot let the music play without jabbering all around it. There have been multiple letters to Haaretz and other newspapers.