Comments on: Why I Should Be The Next Director General Of The BBC

By: Frank Key

Frank Key — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:39:48 +0000

Mr Slang : I think I will be able to shoehorn the interludes into my revised schedule. Come to think of it, it may be rather a question of shoehorning my schedule into constant repeats of the interludes.

Nige : The revived Listener will include content based on programmes. We just won’t broadcast (or indeed make) the programmes, forcing the licence payer to read the printed word instead.

Rest assured I shall be properly attired.

By: Nige

Nige — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 18:22:21 +0000

Oh gosh, those films took me back – and talk of the dear old Listener (which closed shortly after dispensing with my services – the Curse of Nige I’m afraid). There might be a small problem with reviving it, Frank, as nearly all its content was related to TV and radio programmes and there won’t really be any under yr eminently sounds plans for the BBC. Even the Googie Withers partwork would only last so long… And yes Mahlerman, you’re surely right about the neckwear revival – the sight of the new man ‘in charge’ arriving at work tieless, shirt barely tucked in, cardboard coffee in hand was another sure sign…

By: Mr Slang

Mr Slang — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:14:55 +0000

As a license payer – or so I was informed the other day when I received a threatening missive despite not in fact having permitted a set in my house since 2003 – I trust my voice will not go unheard. Where will you stand on the Interlude, that bedrock of the Corporation’s ‘golden years’ (the recent disturbing, indeed near-shattering allegations in re ‘Uncle Mac’ notwithstanding). Especially this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-wmbM6EpZU

and this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtOjGXZ5sLM&feature=relmfu

Surely, with the newly trimmed down schedules, there should be plenty of opportunities for their triumphant return. A nation, dare I suggest, awaits.

By: mahlerman

mahlerman — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:26:54 +0000

Agreed Gaw. The sight of Paxman sans tie recently is a sure sign that ties (or perhaps cravats, Nige?) are about to make a welcome return to public life. I think it is these small details that count, don’t you Frank?

By: Gaw

Gaw — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:33:24 +0000

I hope you’re planning to wear a tie.

By: mahlerman

mahlerman — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 09:15:54 +0000

Well Frank, I’m with you on most of that. A life without Petroc Trelawny and Vanessa Feltz will be difficult for a while, but I will be able to ‘move on’ eventually. The main problem you will have when you take up your new post (do you have a suit, by the way?) will be getting your head around the technological overload we are all now living with. Fifty years ago, when The Listener was still flapping on the news-stands, Ben Britten wrote about the holy triangle of composer, performer and listener. And ‘listening’ was recognized as something to be understood and even practiced, in the same way as speech was and is (but for how much longer?). I’ve lost count of the number of couples I have seen over the last few years communicating (perhaps with each other?) at a restaurant table, using a smart-phone or (increasingly) a pad. Sitting down to a meal with another human being used to be an opportunity to eat, hopefully, good food, an enjoyable ambience, and a rewarding conversation on, perhaps, the future of the BBC. Today it seems more like a stopping-off point between one vital moment and another.
If the listener doesn’t want to listen, and they just want to live on sound-bites and celebrity, where do you start?
You can hear that the rot has set-in on R3 and increasingly R4 any day of the week. The fruitless battle for audience share that R3 has waged (and lost) by chasing Classic FM’s audience with ‘jocks’ and ‘charts’ has resulted in mass abandonment by an already small audience, who have voted with their feet, and now listen to mostly online US and Euro ‘serious’ programmes that meet their needs. It is not too much of a stretch to imagine that R3 will, quite soon, go the way of The Listener. I never thought I would say it, but today I would say ‘good riddance’.