BBC Radio 3's ongoing decline

[Sean]

This was the British national art music radio station for many decades up until about fifteen years ago when postmodern and democratic forces quickly if stealthily reduced it to farce and trash, like so many things. The BBC is a consumer dependent media organization in the democratic capitalist context and subject to denial of the aesthetic category and catering to the largest market.

I switched Radio 3 on a few days ago after not listening for many years and the mindless zombie was giving a top ten countdown right then; the station recently has a new controller but he's necessarily another art idiot who can do nothing with the organization's wider structure and the charting of social decline in terms of standards set.

I also noticed on the website that one of my lecturers during my music masters course in 1999-2000, Julian Johnson and now a professor, is giving Building a Library or CD review programmes. This person is not even a listener, having no conception whatsoever of the internalization process or aesthetic experience- he doesn't at all have the mental capacity for it.

He refused to speak to me about any music in terms of listening and was totally horrified at my existence- he'd almost break into a run to get away from me and ignored my emails. Music academics typically only study music and haven't the first clue about it per se, the experience it essentially consists in, and I was of course the faculty's absolute worst nightmare, undermining whole stupid identities.

But now Radio 3 has renounced its once superb values and became stinking putrid filth, or pig fodder in terms of the moronic masses' consumption, Johnson does CD reviews! What a hoot. Mindlessness in the academic system meets mindlessness in the media.

[Hattoff]

Sadly, you are right. The likes of Sean Waffley and Sarah More Speech make one despair of the human race.

[Sean]

My words are a very toned down expression of what's happened over the last couple of decades.

Best wishes Hattoff.

[Mirror Image]

The only radio that's worth anything is internet radio IMHO. Here you get straight-up music continuously 24/7. I don't listen to radio hardly ever these days though as I can pull pretty much anything I want to hear from my collection at any given time. I don't think radio in general is that interesting of a medium anymore.

[vandermolen]

I've twice listened to Radio 3 in the morning on my drive to work. On both occasion the presenter ('Clemency' someone) got the facts wrong. On the first occasion announcing that the British composer Ivor Gurney died in the First World War and secondly announcing that Glazunov conducted the disastrous first performance of Rachmaninov's 'First Piano Concerto' ( instead of 1st Symphony ). We can all make mistakes but as this is supposed to be our top classical radio station I subsequently gave up.

[Sean]

The media is so bad these days that those were very probably not mistakes but deliberate garbage to please the target audience, who do not at all want accuracy and quality, being afraid of such things because they're not up to it.

[mahler10th]

I agree wholeheartedly with every damn thing said here.   

[Sean]

 

[DaveF]

We've said it all before, Sean:

http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,23719.msg844844.html#msg844844

They're just not listening to us.  (No reason not to say it again, though.)  It's especially sad for me because I worked there for a few years (1980s), doing a job that (clearly) doesn't exist any more, mainly providing producers and presenters with correct information about the music being played.

[Sean]

Hey, how about that, great job.

It's a process affecting Western culture generally- I've seen it in films and theatre, through to travel guidebooks, and I can't even get on a bus or train or walk across a square without filth being thrown at me. The soul and spirit is lost and instead of allowing it to speak for itself and it getting your attention per se- instead it's sold as an idiotic pop cultural product.

I think this is a logical outcome of democratic majority-rule. Most people just don't have developed aesthetic sensibility-and the way academia is organized contributes to the situation.

I sometimes think I'm ranting when I write as I did below...

[North Star]

Same thing happened with the only Finnish purely classical station some 5-10 years ago. Nowadays they have some prerecorded comments between the music and half of the time it's utterly screwed and refers to some other recording, and piece, than what was broadcast.

[aligreto]

I sometimes think I'm ranting when I write as I did below...

Rant permitted, with just cause. Your comments appear to be universal. We had the same in Ireland with a great little Classical Music station launched by the national broadcaster some years ago. However, it steadily went downhill to such an extent that it has now become the graveyard for ageing broadcasters from the other stations in the group and for has-been "celebrities" who continually inflict their brand of "culture" on a fast disappearing audience.

What I often wonder is whether no one really looks into the listenership ratings and asks why are they so low? Surely they see that the problem lies in their own hands? I suppose that it comes down to leadership really; they know what is wrong but will not do anything about it thereby protecting their own self interests. Meanwhile the cultural race to the bottom continues unabated.

[Sean]

Thanks aligreto. Interesting comments, and indeed it's a phenomenon going on across the 'developed' West and beyond. I do argue however that the answer is that listener ratings go up if the largest and therefore least sophisticated market is targeted. Of course those who understand music are horrified but in democratic capitalist societies the fear is not pleasing the majority of people most of the time. The political and commercial imperatives of catering for the largest group are the same.

What's needed is an independently funded music service, and indeed an independently funded news media service also, where the activity is not organized as a business and where the income doesn't come from its consumers. Income needs to be provided by the state or some source that gives the institution complete freedom to focus on the truth and with no interest whatsoever in what the desires of the majority with its simplistic minds and prejudices may be.

[Florestan]

What's needed is an independently funded music service, and indeed an independently funded news media service also, where the activity is not organized as a business and where the income doesn't come from its consumers. Income needs to be provided by the state or some source that gives the institution complete freedom to focus on the truth and with no interest whatsoever in what the desires of the majority and its simplistic minds and prejudices.

You do realize the contradiction, don´t you? The State (any State) is based upon, and caters to, precisely the desires of the majority. 

The public Romanian classical music station is nice, though. Judging by the posts in this thread, it is even vastly superior to BBC 3 both in content and staff.

[Sean]

Florestan, I've corrected the grammar in my last sentence...

You do realize the contradiction, don´t you? The State (any State) is based upon, and caters to, precisely the desires of the majority. 

Sure, it should. But in a democracy people will vote simplistically without understanding the issues- they're too dumb to know what's good for them, and for all. Hence the destruction of art, aesthetic experience and the whole notion of anything more than materiality, and ultimately the destruction of local community and the whole society.

Plato got it right from the start- we need a proper hierarchy in society as reflects the quality gradient of its members.

[Moonfish]

You do realize the contradiction, don´t you? The State (any State) is based upon, and caters to, precisely the desires of the majority.

The public Romanian classical music station is nice, though. Judging by the posts in this thread, it is even vastly superior to BBC 3 both in content and staff.

I disagree! It depends on the state so it can go either way. A state can (potentially) impose an "ideal/perfect" program of music (make your choice here). However, the definition of what is "perfect" or "ideal" will of course be a point of contention.

In contrast public media in the US is generally based on majority of viewers rather than state decisions due to income based on advertisements. No wonder we have such poor programming on the networks.

[Sean]

Sure thing, Moon.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Music academics typically only study music and haven't the first clue about it per se, the experience it essentially consists in.

This is painting with far too broad a brush. The best "music academics" - people like Edward Cone, Joseph Kerman, Charles Rosen, Philip Gossett, Karol Berger, Robert Morgan, Richard Taruskin, and others (I'm sorry I don't know any women of comparable stature) are extraordinarily sensitive to music and are often also practicing musicians. On a plane ride home last night I was reading Cone's essay on Berlioz and thinking that if anyone has any doubts about Berlioz's musical mastery, this ought to convert them.

At the same time, while I don't listen to BBC3, I have been deploring for years the decline in standards in New York's so-called classical stations. Ignorant announcers, snippets and snatches rather than complete works, pop crap, a total lack of courage when modern music is concerned - you name it, the only surviving station, WQXR, is now a caricature of itself. I will never forget the time a single movement of the Mozart D-major violin concerto was played (of course we couldn't have the whole work), and when the recording was stopped just after the cadenza, the surprised and addled announcer burst in with, "Why, that was abrupt, wasn't it?"

[Gurn Blanston]

I'd feel sorry for you  poor bastard Brits, but; we are no better off than you, so I can't afford to feel sorry.

About 15 years ago, when mp3's first became generally available, I began copying all of my own music CD's to MP3 and playing my own music through my own devices. After 15 years I have it down pat, and now I never lack for good music, anywhere, anytime. I'm damned if I will depend on the State or any commercial entity to provide my own unique pleasure requirements at random.

Pity though, back in the old days I certainly enjoyed good radio broadcasts.

[Ken B]

Pity though, back in the old days I certainly enjoyed good radio broadcasts.

So you were one of my listeners then?