BBC Radio 3 has lost almost 1/8 of its listeners
NewsThe latest Rajar figures show that classical Radio 3 has shed 228,000 listeners since March 2022, falling to 1.7 million.
This is serious, but not serious enough.
I suspect many are deterred by the station’s fixed smile and forced levity. They want intelligent music, unadulterated by fashionable causes and equality directives. Or maybe they want something else altogether.
Whatever the reason for the 11.8% drop, new controller Sam Jackson has his work cut out to reconnect the station to its target audience, whoever they might be.
David Taylor has some more thoughts here.
Not surprising. It’s pretty boring.
I suppose if you think good quality live music is boring then ok
I listened online, particularly late night, till they changed streaming platform and can no longer be accessed by my internet tuner. I never listened to the endless daytime chatter.
We’re getting weary of the extent to which Breakfast on Radio 3 is an advertising programme for *other* Radio 3 programmes.
That’s particularly true on Sunday morning. Everything played is linked to another programme.
I am wondering if they get a special bonus for every time they say, “Radio 3 – Home of the Proms.” It’s like a holy prayer you must utter every five minutes.
How about ‘Radio 3 New Generation Artist’? If I had an English £ for every time that phrase is mentioned….
Not just other Radio 3 programmes – Friday’s 1300 news bulletin was preceded by a rhyming trailer for the 6 Nations rugby tournament!
They lost me as a listener when Nicholas Kenyon completely fucked the station over in the early 90s, and I’ve rarely been back since.
I predicted at the time that it might bring in a newer audience, but it wouldn’t bring in a _bigger_ audience, and it looks like I was right all along the line.
Totally agree. I’ve just posted a comment which elaborates on your. It’s currently being moderated so it’s not yet up.
The rot at the BBC is terminal. When you are incapable of accurate self-perception, you have no hope of improvement.
The beauty for them is that the taxpayer is footing the bill and they can come in to work each day even if only one person is listening. No risks, no economic tight-ropes to negotiate, no fear of cancellation or failure.
The perfect sinecure.
I agree with your general opinion of R3, but the tax-payer doesn’t fund the BBC. The licence-payer does by means of owning a TV set and/or watching live on-line.
If you don’t own a TV, you get all of the BBC’s radio output free, whether or not you pay tax. I know a few people who don’t own at TV. Sometimes I wish we didn’t have one. But I digress.
So much that Radio 3 is currently doing seems to be driven by a desire to be trendy or, allegedly, engaging, in the hope that this will draw in a new audience. It simply should let the music speak for itself.
The station just needs to serve up a rounded menu of music from across the ages, allowing the listener to listen, or not, as their mood/interests takes them. The constant, and painfully linked, shifting between ill-matched snippets (“Here’s the FOURTH movement of Mozart’s Requiem” – “now let’s listen to a movement from the Byrd Mass for FOUR voices” – “here’s one of the FOUR Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes” – “before signing-off, let’s listen to some FAURe”) makes for frustrating listening. Other stations provide this sort of programming and do it much better.
Further still, and goodness knows why, the station seems to want to define our moods for us (I don’t think that I’ve ever knowingly had a “slow moment”, as such) and deliver them to us in that chatty way that is more relevant to the TV sofa. How long will it be before the excellent Ian Skelley is forced to start Afternoon Concert asking us “How are you today?” in a laboured, mock-earnest, saccharine way?
Yes, I know that I sound like someone who wants to return to the early days of Sir John Reith’s time as BBC DG. However, shouldn’t the new controller consider looking back at past successes, as well as trying and invent attempts at new ones?
Perhaps Sam Jackson should ask his more serious announcers what they think could work, rather than allowing the those that push for the spouting of inane drivel to drive the station into oblivion.
They appear to be competing with Classic FM with their Slow and Calm – actually enraging and I want to use my remote control as a machine gun. Instead, zap across to Classic and then back to Radio 3 when I judge their trailer has passed, then put them off and put on a CD. Everything rises, declines, dies, but insulting the listener is a sign of incompetence as a broadcaster.
They don’t have to compete either. Classic FM doesn’t match it for in studio live music
Radio 3 should present itself as the platform to which Classic FM listeners wanting to learn more about good music will aspire. Competition is futile and only likely to result in further lowering of standards. I have no issue as such, with a programme like Essential Classics tailoring itself to the likely attention span of a morning audience, but repeatedly playing the overture to Figaro, and the increasing presence of singers like Ella Fitzgerald, a fine artist, but…This is the wrong direction for the station.
Thank heaven I have a big CD collection! It seems to be the only way to hear all the movements of one work
Try idagio – from new releases to classic recordings for the cost of one (mid-price) CD per month.
I entirely agree!
Radio 3 should present itself as the platform to which Classic FM listeners who want to look farther, should aspire. Trying to compete will only result in further lowering of standards.
I agree with your comments. My post is being moderated at the moment. It’s on a similar theme. R3 has lost the craft of good announcing. The current bunch of, ahem, ‘presenters’ probably don’t remember how good R3 and its predecessor the Third Programme were before the rot set in. It cannot now be ‘The Envy of the World’ as the title of Humphrey Carpenter’s excellent 1990s book on R3 stated.
There are a few good ones still, but often relegated to ‘Through the night’ now. Afternoon concert is the latest to be dumbed down but it’s painful to hear poor Penny Gore (and a few other ‘proper’ announcers who survive) putting a brave face on what has become yet another programme of mixed up snippets rather than through-progammed concerts. And the Opera matinee slot on Thursday where less familiar works were often available has sunk without trace.
Quite agree – I hate all the hooks such as the ‘moments’ in daytime programmes. Also loathe the fixes/mixes – to me a mix tape is a purely personal selection for yourself or a close friend. To a wider audience it is just a series of irritating snippets and juxtapositions. I’ve signed up for idagio and limit my R3 listening occasional concerts, operas, Through the Nights and Andrew McGregor on Saturday morning.
I remember Ian Skelly playing a tenor aria and saying at the end something like ‘well, I suppose if that’s your sort of thing’ and it was so refreshing not to hear how ‘amazing’ it was…
Me too, Miv. If R3 ever reverts to its previous tried and tested format, then I’ll eat my Kochel catalogue. There is no new audience to get. Youngsters don’t listen to the wireless and the older audiences tend eventually to make their own music as harpists on clouds. Even the remnants of R3’s former glory – the afternoon concert and the one in the evening – are now becoming prey to the diversifiers and the wokists. Sic transit goria mundi.
And your demographic would like to see R3 preserved in aspic and probably returned to its original name of the Third Programme into the bargain. Anyone using the perjorative “woke” does not deserve to have any of their comments taken seriously.
not all this demographic thinks like that.
Brilliant
Hello Herbie G,
I agree with every word of your post.
I am in my sixties and I’m often one of the youngest in a concert audience. Outside of cities with music colleges I hardly ever see teenagers at concerts, an age group who like to choose their own brand of music and listen on streaming platforms.
When I have the time to listen to R3 around 11pm to 12.30am I am usually confronted with strange sounds rather than music. At times it’s hard to know if I’m in a bottle making factory, a busy pub at chucking out time, a car mechanic’s garage, the amazon jungle, a fabrication workshop, a lunatic asylum or a council tip.
That is the worst time – stay up a bit longer and listen to ‘Through the Night’ – you get well researched chat [short] a huge rage of complete pieces – often from the far reaches of Europe. As for main-stream radio 3 , nothing will satisfy everyone? I don’t like the Classic FM imitations and the snippets of pieces – but do we want to listen to all of Mahler 7 – so easily streamed or played from your CD collection. As someone has said, the lunchtime/afternoon and evening concerts are the best – and the other bits are either to your taste or not!!
Why are you talking about “wokists” ? This has nothing to do with people’s opinions on social matters. If you want to be taken seriously don’t be so lazy.
‘Essential Classics’ is unlistenable. Too much dross by talentless, Max Richter soundalikes. Gruesome. Afternoons are a bit better usually.
I began listening to Essential Classics while I was on gardening leave a few years ago and it was wonderful. Since Ian Skelly’s been bumped to afternoons it’s really gone down hill.
I enjoy Essential Classics Des, I get to hear music I would not usually listen to, some I like, some I don’t but I find it entertaining and interesting. I am 75 and have my favourites found over the years and am always willing to learn. It’s much better than Classic FM, no adverts for a start!
No adverts? They are constantly advertising themselves! It is seriously annoying, and I resort more and more to my collection of CDs.
Norman, please can you make an actual link to David Taylor’s thoughts?
Cheers.
Here you go:
https://www.david-taylor.org/blog/record-lows-for-classic-fm-and-bbc-radio-3
Thanks!
Even though “Radio 3” doesn’t target the same segment as “Classic fm”, it would seem that the latter is turning competitive and winning a select audience keen on diversifying its musical inclinations. As an outsider, I keep switching from “Radio 3,” my favourite and “Classic fm” or the almost chat-free “Radio Swiss Classic”.
Radio Stephansdom Wien is good too. The internet has sharpened the competition for public broadcasting, but it has no serious existential threats. Thanks to the taxpayer.
A remarkable number of complaining posters who listen often enough and long enough to hear things they are unhappy about. As an occasional listener ( more now than I ever used to) I hear neither fashionable causes nor equality directives and enjoy what I do hear.
More women composers was obviously an equality directive, but despite cringing, I was pleased to discover Rebecca Clarke and Ruth Gipps. Most of the others are dire, though. Come back dead Germans blokes; all is forgiven:)
It’s hardly remarkable, Sandy. Long-standing listener’s have noticed changes over the years, which appear to them to be changes for the worse. Many of them haven’t yet given up because there is still lots of good stuff on Radio 3. My own pet hate is the increasing amount of prattle, presumably designed to attract a new audience, who might be overwhelmed or bored by good music and intelligent commentary alone. The wokeness is just part of corporate culture and is assumed to be self-evidently correct by those who believe in it.
I agree completely.
I started listening to Radio 2 about 35 years ago around the time it became “Radio 1 + 30” and started appealing to those of us now staring our 70th birthday in the barrel, who cut our teeth on Luxy and the pirates and moved on to John Peel’s Sounds of the 70s etc.
I outgrew Radio 2 in the past decade, but find Classic FM too twee, and I can’t stand the adverts.
Radio 3 (especially late on weekday evenings); Radio 6 Music and, online, RTÉ Lyric FM are all now far more to my tastes.
I don’t give a toss if anyone calls me “woke” or “diverse” (although I am a straight, white, late middle-aged male): Hannah Peel and Sarah Mohr-Peitsch can lull me to sleep with Max Richter any evening!
I have actually stopped listening lately because of the constant trailing of The Proms, especially during Essential Classics,and if they think the sound of an audience in the Albert Hall screaming in delight at some stella performance they have misjudged me mightily. Thank goodness for BBC Sounds where I can fast forward through all the drivel.
Never mind, it’s only for a few more weeks. The summer season is a crucial time for the BBC generally as it’s the time of the decreasing number of events of national importance they hold the broadcast rights to. It’s been very noticeable over the past 15 years or so how much coverage of Wimbledon and Glastonbury has expanded.
I’m actually pretty happy with it. I like the variety of style of presenters and programmes – perish the thought that it goes back to the rather austere, intimidating and RP speaking station of my teens when only a combination of emerging love of the music and sheer bloody-mindedness kept me listening! I like the energy and vim of some programmes alongside the more sober and learned style of others. I agree with Paul Brownsey (and wondering if this is my former philosophy tutor?) that there’s an excess of ‘trailers’ at breakfast tho I do also appreciate the heads-up on things I may otherwise miss in a busy life. There may be some adjustments to be made but I’d ca’ canny. Listener figures may be less reliable than they used to with increasing listening via ‘listen later’ options?
Too much chatter like on other BBC radio stations. You just get fed up with it. And previewing other programmes on later which the BBC is doing on TV and radio endlessly. Sometimes there is more music on Classic FM even if it is only single movements from symphonies or concertos. You just have to ignore the ads. Radio 3 still provides a wide variety of classical music not found elsewhere.
“Single movements”!!!??
‘I like the Schumann; what, there’s more to this? Why is it even necessary??!!’
R3 was sanity -saving in the Pandemic – but many of those Thinking Listeners have had to go back to work. Doesn’t anyone analyse Statistics and Sociology these days? Meanwhile, I marvel at what I learn about The Human Condition from this station – and the truths of world cultures… This is one of the only radio stations which doesn’t flinch to reach for the Transcendent as well as the Traditional – in all its guises. Listen on any Saturday afternoon to sense the range. Or listen to Words and Music. Some ‘critics’ are threatened by what’s Educated… They don’t see what a light this station shines into a darkening world…
I worked at home throughout the pandemic and for the whole of my 30 years plus working I had never had the opportunity to listen to the radio during the day, and I started listening to 3 while I was working as otherwise the silence until the baron (NHS) returned home. Since my role is now hybrid I’m still able to enjoy it during the day, and have even started listening in my office when the circumstances allow.
My (not ancient) Roberts Radio no longer receives BBC 3. Fortunately, I have discovered Linn Classical. Music all day, without interruption. No annoying chat.
Yle Klassinen, the Finnish state broadcaster, is excellent. Although I can speak no Finnish, I understand enough to see that they just describe what is next and then play it. That’s all that is required, really.
Hey, it’s only 11.8%! Other stations are losing even more listeners! It’s a sign of the times: the ambivalent fickleness of listener-mobility! I bet it’s still not a mass exodus of Taylor Swift fans!
Maths isn’t your thing Zarathusa? Your user of “only” is stupifying
No it isn’t. It’s only 11.8%
Spelling not your thing Nicholas Bowen ? The word you wanted was Stupefying!
Doesn’t fit the agenda though (EVERYTHING MODERN IS BAD!!!)
Constant silly chatter and endless trailers: more and more radio for dummies. Don’t even try to listen before noon. Classical music, intelligent discussion, sack the light-voiced schoolgirl continuity announcers.
More classical music and less chat would be nice!
Look to Bayern 4 Klassik in Germany. I heard they looked to BBC R3 to set themselves up. I lived in Austria for a few years and listened daily. Now they are a perfect example of how I think R3 should be. As an example of something that annoys me – Essential Classics mornings 9.00 a.m. The tone of the presentation is very patronizing. Am still devoted to R3 mostly and love the eclectic mix of programmes and wonderful voices and style of presenters.
J
Thanks for this!! I’m onto it right away.
Not me! I love Radio 3, I like quite a few of the innovations they have introduced, I love the Proms and the various pieces of music I would otherwise not willingly tune into. I greatly enjoy the slow moment and the wonderful feature on a Sunday morning with the sounds of nature combined with music. I also love the fact there’s none of the dreadful advertising as on Classic FM. Not to mention some superb drama and some excellent discussions. I’ll certainly continue listening! It’s no longer the 1950s and everything has moved on from the way things were presented in those days. PS I’m an organist and I’m 71 years of age.
I’m with you on this. Radio 3 is so much better then Classic FM. I enjoy the breakfast show every day and the Essential Classics with the playlister challenge is almost always interesting and I like the interaction with the listeners even though I’ve never (yet) taken part. As for the adverts about other radio 3 programmes, I don’t look through the listings so I’m glad to hear what other things are on.
Being better than Classic FM is not exactly a high bar; indeed they have galloped downmarket with their constant telling people to calm down – which makes me want to hit someone, so I switch them off and put CD on, having fled similar intrusion on R3.
Not to mention the guest musicians playing live in the studio every day on ‘in tune’
Bring back Ian Skelly in the morning! Intelligent, informative, interesting and no prattle. He talks to the listener rather than reading a script.
No thanks.
Most of the presenters are fine, sounding knowledgeable without sounding superior, with two or three smarmy exceptions. I like to learn more about a wider spectrum of music, especially from neglected composers rather than have Mozart and Beethoven rammed down my neck all the time.
Pity so much interesting stuff only emerges in the dead of night.
Radio 3 or The Third Programme used to have.intellogent musicologist types as presenters well-spoken quality staff
Nowadays we are left with Petroc Trelawny fighting a lone rear guard action
Trouble with BBC radio 3 is that it’s always been controlled by upper middle class gays. Or ‘wannabe’ upper class gays (*cough* Sean Rafferty).
Riddled with snobbery.
Forget the class system. BBC is open to all members
More lowest common denominator lately; levelling down. You seem to equate quality with snobbery. Does it not occur to you that many people may have benefited from a bit of levelling up if they had the awareness to judge that that was what they needed?
this is offensive to gays
I find it’s only “safe” to listen to R3 on playback so I can skip past the endless intrusion tracks and wittering.. I only listen to R’s 3&4 so will dive into old programmes if the days programmes run out.. They’ve taken the useful track markets off the replay line which is telling. I do wish they’d have faith in their audience – does R1 or R2 suddenly play classics tracks in the middle of their programmes?? I don’t think so, so why do we need odd bits of jazz or ethnic “classical” music in ours?? Just belt up!
What is “ethnic “classical” music”?
I wonder if it’s the same issue that we have here in Australia with ABC Classic FM? Hyperbolic hosts constantly on the lookout for some “humorous” commentary around whatever piece they play, way too much chit-chat between pieces, endless (and usually banal) text messages from listeners, presenters telling us how to respond to everything (“wasn’t that great!: “didn’t that make you want to get up and dance!”: “I wonder if you’re as moved by that as I am?”, etc., etc., ad nauseam), and so it goes on. Little wonder that many people either switch off or move the dial to the local independent classical broadcaster (3MBS in Victoria) which functions in a much more traditional and less interventionist manner. Oh well, at least we have a choice.
Totally agree!! It’s banal; the Readers’ Digest Radio!!
It was never like this from 1976 when it started; I brought my first 2 kids up listening to it. Then it went “classic” and I stopped listening. I befriended one of their announcers from the 80s and he felt the same way about it by the time he left.
There are and have been a lot of twee presenters there on Classic FM.
I only began listening to R3 a the beginning of the pandemic. I did not want to listen to the constant bad news on R4 and classic FM drives me mad most of the time. I now listen all the time to R3 and I love it. I listen all morning going about my chores and it ie my go to radio station in the car. I enjoy the mix of music and find it pretty diverse. Some presenters I prefer more than others but most are fine. I don’t think we should expect R3 to be kept in aspic. Things change and some people do not adapt to change very easily. I hope the listening figures pick up again. I for one will not be going elsewhere.
Very well said Helen, I totally agree.
How do they calculate the figures? Do they include listeners using the iPlayer/BBC Sounds catch-up? I once heard that they didn’t. And yet I and I’m sure others too only ever do listen on catch-up, cos busy. Are we not worthy of statistical attention?
As an occasional lister, I feel there’s something for everyone. Some schedules have me turning off, others are very entertaining or informative. The Listening Service is excellent for example.
Ah…the populist, anti-elitist ‘something for everyone’. Radio Three was never intended to be ‘for everyone’, but aimed at a very specific audience, just as other channels are. For example, no-one expects to hear Bach’s B Minor Mass or Beethoven’s Grosse Fugue on Radio One. Providing ‘something for everyone ‘(that’s how the BBC Proms are now promoted), in the futile attempt to satisfy all tastes, necessarily involves dilution of quality in the one area for which Radio Three was created and in which it once excelled.
Something for Everyone? Does that include Heavy Metal fans? And if not, why not?
Please stop playing music by unknown female composers. They didn’t make it at the time, they are not going to make it now
Some of the female composers are way better than the men.. So stay stuck in the past while the rest of enjoy music that was put down by male patriarchy for no good reason other than stupid old male mysoginy
Ps… I’m a man not a feminist bra burner!
Give us some names please. ‘Way better’ than whom?
Name these women composers who are, quote, ‘way better’ than, for example J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner, Schubert, Monteverdi..I am longing to hear them.
Isn’t it fun to learn how and why the very best composers got to be the greatest. You can personally ‘compare and contrast’ and in this way you can learn HOW and why the giants towered over others.
Same with film. You need the dwarves to show you HOW the giants succeeded. Developing critical and discriminating skills is important.
Hear hear! Anyone who doubts this should listen to Robert Schumann’s piano concerto followed by Clara’s: a genius compared with a slightly talented amateur.
Radio 3 (like most of the BBCs radio output) is working its way down to the lowest common denominator. The music programs now play the same homogenous soup of nothingness. Anything exciting, edgy, avant-garde, new is not wanted by the BBCs playlist controllers (witness the brutal cut back of Late Junction’s air time a few years ago) one of Radio 3’s best shows. Not surprising people are giving up on the station.
I loved R3 mix tape and would record it onto cassette to play in car. Late Junction is still on at 11pm
It’s a social problem. I close the windows and doors to void the equality noise.
The BBC across it’s stations have lost their way they have over paid presenters who love their own opinions and sound of their voices and have become disconnected from their listener’s.
Such a shame BBC you are on the skids!
I think Petroc’s Breakfast show is exactly right – enthusiastic, articulate, presenting a diverse range of music at this time of day. Classic FM! – you must be joking!
No brief for Classic – only go across to avoid ad or chatter on R3, but the noisy self-regarding PT is instant switch off.
Any piece written before 1850 is given the “historically informed” treatment. I reach for the off button.
What is that supposed to mean?
But what about people like me who listen to Night Tracks only on BBC Sounds? These figures only include conventional broadcast radio, not streaming.
Through my high fi stereo system and 2 Internet portable radios I stream from Qobuz and over 20 classical music stations across the world. Who needs Radio 3?
I listen and enjoy R3 on my hi-fi system. I need R3 for it’s unmatched quality live studio music broadcast every day on ‘in tune’ and other programs like ‘new generation artists’, Music Planet and J to Z amongst others
Yes, this is what many of us do. What brilliant options, as well as our own libraries many of us cannot hope to get through in the remainder of our lives.
Sad news for older R3 listeners:
Obit of the much loved and sorely missed Peter Barker, one of the first casualties of Nicholas Kenyon’s “makeover” of the station in the early 90s:
https://archive.ph/2023.06.14-233831/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2023/06/14/peter-barker-obituary-announcer-radio-3-1970s-bbc-classical/
Radio 3 is a continuing beacon of hope in a sea of dross. One can ignore the usual droning of men who dislike more playing of female composers. Classic FM is full of ads and patronising voices playing the ‘old favourites’. The Radio 3 weekly 9 to 12am programme is versatile with song of the day, slow moment and audience inclusive suggestions. Intune is lively, intelligent and gives hope and publicity to new and old musicians alike. Words and Music is a real treat – varied music mixed with words relevant to chosen theme and excellent readers. Well done Radio 3 – keep the flag flying for high quality music broadcasting and don’t be afraid of the anti-woke brigade.
Audience inclusive is a reason for avoiding. It is supposed to be broadcasting to The Listener, as the BBC magazine title had it, not to a TV audience.
Lifetime listener but increasingly put off by the interpolation of inappropriate stuff like Oklahoma this morning. I am a feminist, but woke considerations seem behind the choices of composer and players these days. You always get classical music on Classic FM not something with a beat.
Hilarious (and depressing) comments from the spluttering ‘I remember the Third Programme’ crowd who don’t like women, gays or anyone really.
Replying to Petrocs Pantaloons:
As it happens, the old Third Programme had its full complement of homosexuals.
Many years ago I knew a retired, Jewish, R4 producer, who told me was one of the BBC’s three “k’s”:
Kosher, Katholic, and Kweer.
I gave up on R3 long ago because I can’t stand the condescending, patronising drivel. And contemporary classical music has been shoved into that Saturday night ghetto of an inane chat show. How are the mighty fallen!
I agree absolutely with this.
Surely it’s your perception of condescending that is at fault?
Too much twaddle from the presenters. I stopped listening a long time ago.
Radio three is the crown in the bbc broadcasting crown…. do fix it… it isn’t broken!
A scuffed and dirty crown slipping off the head of an organisation mired in contempt for the listener. What R3 has in common with those who’ve given up on the Today programme is listeners who wish the BBC to play the music, report the news, but don’t condescend with chitchat and treating listeners as a light entertainment audience.
All along it’s as if they simply don’t have the confidence to let the music speak for itself. Given the banal utterings of R3 presenters at prime time and TV intros to the Proms just imagine if this approach was applied to sport!
Even the once a year moment when tennis rises to the surface at Wimbledon is not greeted with inane comment. It’s assumed that the viewer will know the rules and they are presented with complex data with regard to the players’ achievements during and preceding the match.
I simply don’t believe the guff about bringing in a new or wider audience – I think it’s all down to belief in the music itself …. or lack of it.
Not enough modernist music. Very boring poppish stuff.
Just play the music!
Seem to want to copy classic FM 🙁
I love radio 3. As I suffer from ill health and can’t get out much it is a lifeline. I listen to it most of the day. I hope they dont messit up
Every time an opportunity presents itself, the listener is bombarded with frenetic self-promoting announcements, a sure sign the channel is losing its once ultra loyal listeners.
The promotion of compositions explicitly selected on the basis of genetic and not musical criteria will only accelerate this decline. It’s a tragedy.
Of course ratings will decline if we are not educating school children in the art of classical music either in the classroom or instrumentally.
Exact analysis, for me anyway. This forced levity and the playing of movements rather than pieces feels like an insult tome as a listener.
Just play the music not chatter, chatter and advert for next show/s.Please play classical music 24/7.
As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got it right on every count and I know I speak for at very least two friends.
Far too much trivial chat.
They lost me as a listener here in Norway when they changed the way their streaming works, a few weeks back. BBC Sounds is far less convenient for me.
They lost many listeners in central Europe because they stopped the shoutcast streaming :You can´t listen anymore to BBC3 on digital streaming platforms like.Phonostar Radio.I recorded and stored on my computer about 1500 live concert broadcasts from BBC 3 since i subscribed to Phonostar in 2014.
Since they stopped Shoutcast in July,you can only listen to BBC on BBC Sounds,their own streaming site.But you can´t record anything and store it on your computer from their platform….Much of the current Proms season is available on italian RAI 3, but in much poorer sound quality than BBC 3.
I listen and enjoy R3 on my hi-fi system. I need R3 for it’s unmatched quality live studio music broadcast every day on ‘in tune’ and other programs like ‘new generation artists’, Music Planet and J to Z amongst others
I don’t envy the controller of Radio 3 at all. It has the second highest budget per user of any BBC radio station and the most unforgiving audience. How is it to draw in new listeners whilst continuing to indulge the esoteric stalwarts?
As for Classic FM, the station has gone downhill since John Suchet left the morning programme, traditionally its strongest daypart. Alexander Armstrong was a terrible replacement with his verbosity and fake bonhomie. The constant persuasion for listeners to “relax” is also extremely patronising. Who wants a radio station dictating one’s mood?
When I contacted R3 to suggest that they refer to ‘forgotten women composers’ as female composers, thus emphasising that they were composers first, the producer responded that he could not do that, as it may exclude the forgotten trans composers!
I began listening to R3 some years ago when I could stand R4 Today no longer. I agree that there are too many trailers and links to other programmes, and too much dumbing down with e.g. songs from Oklahoma, but there’s nothing to beat starting the day with Petroc. I loved his comment one day during lockdown: at 08.00 – “That’s the last news summary until 1.00. People seem to like it that way.” Inded they do. Georgia is OK too, as is Martin Handley. I’m too busy to listen after 10.00am, so can’t comment about later programmes. Yes, some presenters have irritating voices and/or diction, but overall, R3 is a force for good and I would miss it if it wasn’t there.
I definitely prefer the evening programmes to the morning ones, but the whole station is preferable to Classic FM. I would love to see a return to the exciting and eclectic selection of Late Junction in its heyday.
When at my second home in France I can no longer get any BBC radio or TV programmes. There must be thousands of other Brits experiencing the same Classic FM we can get but alas, we are deprived of BBC3 snd the World Service. Whatever has BBC done.?!
It’s certainly good to see so very many comments, but it’s sad that the majority are so critical of one of the world’s very finest radio stations. I remember John Drummond saying he received so many letters of complaint that he summed up that there were more ‘music haters’ than ‘music lovers’. Things clearly haven’t changed in the last 25 years in that regard!
But seriously, I am sure the problem lies in the ever diminishing access to music education in the state school sector (which serves 93% of school children). Perhaps that’s where some research needs doing. But it’s inevitable that if you deny access to an education in classical music then its audience will diminish. Terribly sad. (I have no words for the destructive education policies espoused by this government!)
But crass chauvinist comments made here about female composers don’t help. And there are other stupid comments too. These just add fuel to the fire of critics who’d call Radio 3 ‘elitist’ and ‘out of touch’.
Use it or loose it! Don’t criticise so harshly what is outstanding, even if it has changed.
I now live in Italy and thank goodness for BBC Sounds which allows me to listen to Radio 3 just as if I was still in the country of my birth.
Good luck to Radio 3 and all those great musicians (singers, instrumentalists, orchestras and composers) who make Radio 3 so outstanding and unique – and still an exemplar!
I am a great fan of Radio 3, Breakfast, Record Review and Sunday’s Early Music Show are my absolute favourites and there’s nothing else like the BBC Proms. I am not keen on the constant push for diversity and tokenism. Keep to the great and wonderful collection of classical composers and everyone will be happier
I barely listen to R3 these days, far too much chat and trailers, the latter for the proms have become unbearable, on and on they go, especially the irritating tag about R3 being “the home of the proms”, Martin Handley being the worst offender with its blatant overuse, and he’s getting more sycophantic with each broadcast.
Alan Davey got it wrong by trying to compete with Classic FM instead of taking the lead, so Sam Jackson needs to set the agenda, rise above current mediocrity, cut the downmarket rubbish that is broadcast, tone down the presenters (some a lot), stop the drivel, and remember that listeners may know more than some presenters, which would not be difficult in some cases. Have you ever heard a R3 presenter criticise a concert performance he or she is presenting, let alone a proms one? No, everything’s great, which shows their lack of experience or their shameless complicity in trying to hoodwink listeners. Best to present and not relay opinions.
Radio 3 lost 1000s of listeners worldwide as a result of its stupid decision to ban direct online radio.
They don’t give a damn about listeners outside the UK concentrating on statistics collection and forcing everyone into their ridiculous BBC I player …which then denies all access to those outside the UK and/or those with older internet radios.
They have even tried multiple times to halt FM radio and try to force everyone to adopt those useless DAB horrible sounding digital radio.
In meantime I listen to Swiss and French radio no problem and the quality is often as good or better.
The basic problem with current R3 is the pushing of the DJ as the star instead of the music. Petroch, Georgia, Jess, Sarah More Peach, Hannah what’s her name – they all want to tell you repeatedly who they are…. Over the importance of good classical music. Plus they have no direction – that’s why they do all this Playlister nonsense – actually this is pandering to a small minority audience who have limited taste in good classical music. Concentrate on good music without overlong characterful DJ’s and R3 can return to being good again.
I miss the full Through the Night. Odd bits stuffed on at the beginning and end. I just don’t bother if it’s not what I want, turn it off. Find something else instead.
In the 1970s, I worked as a Technical Operator (read ‘technician’ in non-BBC-speak) in Radio 3’s Continuity Suite. I was a member of ‘D’ Shift, if that means anything to anybody! That was before it was messed about with by people higher up the chain meddling with a well-proven format in an effort to compete with Classic FM. When I was a teenager, The Third Programme which became Radio 3 in the late 1960s played a key role in the development of both my appreciation of serious music and my increasing interest in hi-fi audio. Radio 3 has been completely ruined. My list of gripes is too long for this post, but about 10 years ago, (maybe more), long after I finished working for the Corporation, I and a group of fellow R3 listeners managed to get a meeting in Broadcasting House with the then R3 Controller Roger Wright. We all told him what we did not like, and I voiced my own personal list. Water off a duck’s back, I’m afraid. It would be a step in the right direction if:
a) packaged programme trails were done away with.
b) They returned to intelligent announcing rather than the current ‘presenter’ style where they utter banal quips and use meaningless adjectives in the course of expressing their personal opinions
c) Get rid of the ‘pick’n mix’ format in the mornings when they often broadcast only one movement of a multi-movement piece.
My list could probably reach m).
Howard (“Ted”) Edwards
Llandudno
Conwy
The light weight presenters have made it a Horlicks. Putting Jazz and cross over on it is a bad idea. It was better when it was the (Third) programme. They have turned it into a sort of classical radio 1 full of wee snippets. Why can they not broadcast operas simultaneously on BBC4 and Radio 3 from Salzburg, Vienna, Milan, Bayreuth, Munich, Berlin etc?
I like composer of the week but if they could play entire pieces rather than snippets.
To be fair, I think the Third Programme has always included some jazz in its output. I’m primarily a classical music listener but used to very much enjoy Geoffrey Smith’s Jazz programme late on Saturday night – each week exploring the work and career of a different jazz great. Not all were to my taste but I often found it ideal for settling down for the night. Replacing that show with ‘Freeness’ was very misguided – loud improv jazz is certainly not what I want at that time of night.
The dismal trend of trying to persuade all of us that enjoying music requires no effort not to mention the juxtaposition of pieces with no regard to context. R3 seems intent on being consumer lead. Lazy programming.
Does Radio 3 still describe the In Tune Mixtape as ‘uninterrupted’? Because now it darn well isn’t. It’s regularly interrupted by breathy announcements which are blatant imitations in every respect of the ones inflicted on listeners to Classic FM. Does the BBC really believe that this tactic will somehow attract more listeners? Alienate its current ones more likely, including yours truly.
The inane chattiness, the ‘big orchestral moments’ and the playing of single movements–presumably because all music comes in ‘albums’ made up of autonomous ‘tracks’–have slowly eroded the amount of time I can bear to listen. I used to avoid Essential Classics and In Tune (accepting them as daily blandness for commuters who ought to be concentrating on the road, though I wondered why they had to be so long) but now I find I only listen to Composer of the Week and Lunchtime Concert. Afternoon Concert was the most recent to go–single movements again. Particularly miss the complete Prom repeats in the summer. About a decade ago I addressed a solemn complaint to the BBC after they played a single movement from Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet, declaring that it was an insult to the audience, to Shostakovich and to the quartet’s dedicatees (the victims of Fascism). I was told in response that people had different tastes (presumably some people only like chapters 8 to 15 of novels, or the penultimate half hour of a movie) and am still too angry to reply. On a small positive note, I have enjoyed the diversity drive on Composer of the Week, though it would be nice if the BBC orchestras would record performances of some of the neglected works, preferably complete ….
Broadly speaking, I share your opinion, and have posted recently. Composer of the Week is usually compulsive listening, but some choices are of questionable validity when for example, David Matthews who I have waved a flag for and exchanged emails with, has never been the subject despite discussions. 10 Symphonies and counting! As for Essential Classics, at least I find it better than silence when working around the house in the morning, and there has been the odd occasion when they have played an extract that led me to investigate further.
Sick to death of trailer after trailer all day long. Can’t listen much longer & I’ve been listening for over 60 years. How I wish it was like back then.
It has been very noticeable in the last few months that the interesting content we got used to, namely little-known composers and especially female composers, has being replaced by a staple diet of Mendelssohn and Mozart. How dull is that ? Where is the challenge ? If you want that sort of easy listening, go to Classic FM
I have my misgiving about the direction some of Radio 3 content has taken. More about that later, but firstly, to accentuate the positives. Composer of the Week, Lunchtime Recitals, afternoon & evening concerts, every Prom and Private passions are surely jewels in the crown of broadcasting, and Night Tracks can be interestingly provocative. On the other hand, whilst I can see that Essential Classics is tailored to the likely attention span of a morning audience, the umpteenth repeat of the overtures to Figaro, Forza, & Russlan is tiresome, and the increasing presence of for example, Ella Fitzgerald, a fine artist, bur whether she and her like really belong on Radio 3 is to say the least, debateable. There is also an increased tendency for presenters to tell listeners who are capable to judge for themselves how good a certain piece or artist is, and if such trends continue, there is the depressing prospect of 3 becoming a clone of (Pop) Classic FM, to which at present it remains far superior. I hope the new controller will take this, and the comments of all other contributors on board.
This is going back to 1958 last night of the proms bbc radio sir Malcolm Sergeants speech!
https://youtube.com/watch?v=dhNxJrwwSec&si=GZ5LxD18WKpUH4-5
Just come across this interesting thread which mostly reflects my frustration with the trend of radio 3. Seems ironic that when Classic FM started it was scorned by the BBC fans who condemned the advertising, chat and musical snippets that are now part and parcel of the Third programme! This might well be a major reason for the decline in listeners.
I hope the radio 3 controllers have also trawled through all the comments but it would seem not as there don’t seem to be any changes in format.
I welcome the changes on radio 3. Especially delighted that Friday Night is Music Night has new shows. What would really be the icing on the cake is a return to Matinee Musicale. Light Orchestral Music is always a winner.
To many very intrusive other programme adverts at least every 20mins . Might as well have as at classic FM adverts , they are similar . Who wants Mr J Hollands talking about the piano or Mr C Myrie. This is classic FM nonsense . I have never turned off Radio 3 so often in the last week or two . Mr Jackson was a mistake appt and should have stayed with classic FM . The two stations are different and should stay do
I would rather listen to fingers scraping along a chalk board than listen to Radio 3 ‘In Tune’. Apart from the dreadful obsequiousness of Sean Rafferty, who it seems can’t wait until the music interludes stop so that he can begin talking again, there is the wittering of a gushing Katie Derham to contend with.
Enfin, there is far too much vacuous chat on this show and not enough uninterrupted music, which is why the majority of us listen to Radio 3 I would imagine.
Radio 3 on Saturday mornings is now unlistenable. It’s not the presenter’s fault (though we hear too much chatter). but the format is all over the place. I do wish they’d bring back Andrew Macgregor and Record Review. It was my only opportunity to listen to Radio 3.
My impression is that Sam Jackson is to a considerable extent responsible for the unwelcome levity which is very noticeable in the morning and early evening programmes, and at the Proms there is more inclusion of music which does not belong at a classical music festival. Sir Mark Elder spoke fluently about the importance of live music at the end of his final Halle concert. I wish he had said live UNAMPLIFIED music. Next year, Mr. Jackson will become Director of the Proms. When the 2025 prospectus appears, I will open it with a feeling of trepidation.