Just in: New threat to BBC orchestras
NewsA centennial policy statement today by BBC Director General Tim Davie poses a clear and present threat to future funding of the BBC Orchestras.
Here’s what Tim Davie says:
‘ … while we will continue to play a vital role in classical music in this country, we must be realistic about the resources we use. We will continue to support the classical music sector, invest in Radio 3 and improve our educational impact. However, we will look to reduce licence fee funding in our performing groups – preferably by looking for alternative sources of income where possible.’
How realistic is that? And how will other orchestras react to the BBC stealing their sponsors?
Also heading for the chop is the culture channel BBC4, which is going online only.
Click here for the full statement.
No surprise there. They all perform mostly works by dead white men – they are simply not woke enough for today’s BBC, who are also moving BBC 4 to internet only. No surprise there either. Far too obsessed with culture – we don’t want any of that because it’s unfashionable.
Once all that is done, the BBC should stop demanding a licence fee and rely on voluntary contributions from those who are happy with its present pitiful kow-towing to the lowest common denominator and obsession that entertainment is the be all and end all when really it is the b*****-all.
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the leading uk orchestra at commissioning new music from living composers of all genders.
Exactly!
He’s a Conservative appointment so has to toe the line. Remember BBC3 went on line only and was so popular it is now back on our tvs. BBC 4 has been a waste of time for ages, nothing but repeats and Top of the Pops. They gave up on it ages ago. Anything worthwhile will now go on BBC 2 but what will happen to the few concerts they broadcast from the Proms as if they are doing us an annual favour?
There was protest when BBC3 went online-only, but the viewing figures do not justify the decision to bring it back on air. There are potentially massive BBC4 archives that could be accessed via iPlayer – potentially, I say, as there is little there at the moment.
An ominous statement from the BBC; how long before Radio 3 (flawed perhaps, but still one of the few classical radio stations readily available here in the UK), and the Proms, too, find themselves in the Corporation’s cost-cutting sights?
This is and never has been,a BBC funding issue.It is dishonest to claim that the Corporation with it’s now almost unlimited financial resources cannot fund it’s orchestras.It is about what,for some unfathomable reason,what the red brick management of the Corporation percieve to be ‘elitist’ art.Of course it is a little more sophisticated than the 1930s attempt to change our thoughts.We have pulled down statues but for goodness sake don’t let’s start burning books.
Within this generation Britain will complete its journey in going back to a completely financialized, post-1688 culture, in which it will be a society whose value system is based completely on money. There are reasons as to why England did not produce a single first-rate composer for all of the two hundred years from the death of Purcell to the advent of Elgar.
“value system is based completely on money”
you need money to fund the BBC orchestras. funny how money works.
And there is plenty of it to go around in Great Britain.
Nor Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. UK is not just England.
There’s a wonderfully simple solution: make the orchestras freelance and pay them when they’re actually required. They’d save millions.
rather, make the listeners pay the orchestras what they think they’re actually worth
it’s easy to demand others pay for one’s pleasures, it’s a lot more painful to pay for them oneself
Ah, the great libertarian.
Niklas:
Yes, you’d save millions. But, if your suggestion came about, what about the damage done by effectively dismantling one of the UK’s remaining great cultural performing arts assets?
Some societies, such as Germany, have massively higher arts funding than in the UK and also seem to me to be clearly happier, more stable and more prosperous than us. I’m convinced there is a connection between these things.
Tragically, in the UK we seem better and better at knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Maybe if the BBC hadn’t overstretched itself on so many other fronts it would still have enough resources for classical music. The glory days of Glock (and even Ponsonby and Drummond) are, sadly, very much a things of the past.
What culture on BBC4, exactly?
Endless repeats of Top of the Pops and archived pop music shows and compilations?
It wouldn’t be so bad if there some occasional classical* or dramatic content, even if only from the archives, which must be pretty vast.
*not including the annual, self-congratulatory Promsfest, which become more of a joke every year, both in content and presentation.
Every Sunday night is now devoted to the serious arts, and a large chunk is classical music.
Yes, for the plebs!
When the BBC need to cut costs, it always immediately targets something that people will miss rather than its hopelessly bloated corporate centre (finance, HR etc.)…
Well done for homing in on the most important part of the announcement, for which the BBC have used the move of BBC4 online as a bit of a dead cat.
In these times, you have to wonder what they have in mind by “alternative sources of income where possible”. I suspect they’ve not even got round to thinking about this, and the next step will be to throw umpteen thousand at some sort of consultancy firm, as per the usual modus operandi.