BBC boss: Classical music is in crisis. We’ll sort it
NewsFrom evidence by the BBC’s Chief Content Officer, Charlotte Moore, to the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Moore: ‘We are absolutely committed to our classical music and our performing groups provision at the BBC and we’ve been the biggest commissioners of music and we’re one of the biggest employers of musicians in the country and we’ve been that for some time and that is absolutely our intention to go on doing that. We spend, er, £60 million annually on classical music so this is all framed in our absolute commitment to this, er, role continuing.’
‘We are in a real crisis, I think, in the classical music sector and I think for the BBC to be looking at what role should we be playing in the future that fits our public service mission is absolutely I think the right thing to do.’
Analysis:
Ms Moore is not in full command of her material. Phrases like ‘for some time’ and (checks notes) ‘er, £60 million’ inspire little confidence. The BBC’s ‘absolute commitment’ to classical music was signalled by a determination to abolish at least two performing groups, the BBC Singers and the BBC Concert Orchestra. Now that these plans have been laid aside, no other strategy has been presented. MPs were not convinced by Ms Moore’s hesitant assurances.
More serious is her claim that classical music is in ‘real crisis’. How, where, and to what extent is it worse than 10 or 20 years ago? It is in slow decline, to be sure, but crisis is an inflammatory term that should not be misused unless the speaker can show a way out of it. Charlotte Moore plainly can’t.
This was a poor show.
Watch.
In @CommonsCMS I asked the Chief Content Officer at the BBC, Charlotte Moore, to address rumours that the proposed cuts to BBC Orchestras and Singers will only be suspended until after the Proms.
Her response: "This is wrong, this is all about us trying to find a new model." pic.twitter.com/AfRBGHXGqF
— Kevin Brennan MP (@KevinBrennanMP) June 13, 2023
I have said it many times before, and will say it again, audiences for orchestral concerts were growing before the pandemic. Yes there is a ‘missing audience’ post-pandemic, but it’s the same for theatre and dance. The only ‘crisis’ for classical music in the UK has been caused by funding cuts.
You seem to be conveniently forgetting the nefarious role played by your ex ABO Chair, proud author of the discredited BBC classical music strategy (7/3/23).
Bravo, virtuosic shape shifting as ever.
Spot on Mark. Lack of funding is the problem not a dwindling of audience numbers.
BBC – Bread ‘n’ Butter Classics
The years of plenty are over.
Many, many weasel words which like those of Siobhan Sharp in that great satire W1A, amount to precisely nothing. She will go ahead with cuts choose what because she’s been told to.
Honest question…Does anyone know the musical background of the Chief Content Officer or anyone else making these requests and decisions? Have they been performers on a professional level? Truly curious.
No. They’re glorified accountants who are brought in to run numbers, but they don’t understand how music works as an industry.
Charlotte Moore was educated at Wycombe Abbey and Bristol University; she holds a BA in History from the latter institution. I have not been able to ascertain any musical and/or performing ability.
What a silly question, she isn’t in charge of music alone, why should she be a performer?
Whoever is advising her about music, and probably classical music specifically, is way down in the BBC’s organisational charts.
Her Wikipedia entry: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Moore_(TV_executive)
“CLASSICAL MUSIC IS IN CRISIS. WE’LL SORT IT”
Echos of ‘we are from the Government, we are here to help’
Only £60 million for British orchestras?
Compare that to the bounteous $2.5 million (~£2 million) that the US federal government’s NEA lavishes on orchestral music… for 5X the population.
https://americanorchestras.org/fy23-nea-grants-to-orchestras/
The rest is made up with the millions from the wealthy Americans who support for Opera, Ballet and symphonic music that is absent in the UK.
It also states in the article that 67M dollars is spent on State and Regional orchestras. All that including the tens of millions of dollars ploughed into USA Orchestras every year, by very wealthy individuals and benefactors.
One need only look at USA Universtities like Harvard, where endowments from former wealthy graduates amount to a staggering 53 Billion dollars.
Another one who, er, wouldn’t pass an, er, oral English exam. Did she also wave her hands about?
How many times did she manage to use “and” in a single sentence? My English teacher would have been horrified. Admittedly, they taught grammar back in those days…
Some of us still do!
Classical music is not in crisis, the economy is. When there’s no money…Germany is already in a recession and it will be left with half a dozen orchestras. All the remaining musicians better start looking for a job, in China maybe.
There are several excellent orchestras in China and they employ a few Westerners.
All that is missing is the claim that classical music is the BBC’s top priority. That’s the kind of ‘reach me down’ drivel phrase that all failing organisations use when confronted with their shortcomings.
Forget about the Chief Content Officer – a laughable title. What they need is a Chief Discontent Officer. He’d be kept very busy.
I don’t know why you think that’s a laughable title, she is literally in charge of commissioning content for the BBC, she replaced the individual channel controllers in order to save money.
There was a plan to abolish at least two “content providers.” Must get the verbiage right, people!
Masses are not interested in Music. They are just interested in being amused by what they call music.
Schools should insert in their useless curricula Music so that future citizens will contribute towards the cause of Music and maybe stop confusing Schubert with Schobert and Johann Strauss with Richard Strauss and thinking that Music is not worth investing.
This is hilarious! Given that the naughty Auntie has neglected, even sabotaged, Classical music for years, I don’t believe a word of this tripe. Radio 3 has become a close relative of, dare I say it, Classic FM these days. Its presenters, not to mention the glittering nobodies that introduce the meagre televised concerts, are woefully inadequate. It’s no good emailing the Beeb about this matter because they hardly ever reply. I shall watch with interest.
Radio 3’s current woke agenda of genes rather than genius and quotas rather than quality is destroying what was once the finest classical music channel in the world. It’s a tragedy.
Please define the word “woke.” When you can do that and use it properly in a sentence, I’ll give credence to what you have to say.
Sure, perish the thought that people supressed from the canon get a hearing, perish the thought that diverse audiences turn off from classical music because the gatekeepers aren’t interested in fair and wider representation.
If you don’t try to broaden the appeal of classical music (like Wigmore Hall did recently with a cycle of African composers) then a multicultural city like London may decide that your endeavours aren’t worth supporting (and when one visits some concert halls, uniformly bald and grey haired, I think the time is now, not tomorrow, tomorrow it may be too late).
We don’t need to repeat ad nauseam music from the mummified pantheon of greats, rejoicing in the inconsequential bit of music found in somebody’s attic as long as it is composed by somebody we already know.
For your information the genes of composers ignored for centuries are as good as anybody else’s, perhaps the reason they weren’t being promoted had nothing to do with genes and more to do with prevailing attitudes that enlightened people are trying to overcome.
I love woke, it is educational. Educate yourself.
How can you trust anyone called a chief content officer , Orwell must be spinning in his grave !!! “Our ” chief content officer wouldn’t know a significant composition if it bit her on the nose.
Can you offer a title for somebody that has the overall responsibility of the BBC’s content commissioning and programming?
Let’s see how un-orwellian you manage to sound, I’m sure your immense wit will put that title to shame.
Charlotte Moore is a just a HR hatchet woman, she would not know her Bach from her Buxtehude.
Could we have the Third programme back with black ties. Or maybe in 2023 it is now the Turd programme, like everything else.
No, she isn’t.
Her biography is readily available in Wikipedia.
She isn’t an artist but frankly I wouldn’t expect somebody in her position to be.