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The Radio 3 Boards > The Radio 3 Boards > General Radio 3 Discussion > Is the BBC too posh?
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Author Topic: Is the BBC too posh?  (Read 2217 times)
thompson1780
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« Reply #30 on: 16:15:37, 10-04-2007 »
Quote from: Tony Watson on 14:39:19, 03-04-2007
I read this in Michele Hanson's article in this morning's Guardian:
"Is the BBC too posh and elitist?


http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/posh
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/elitist

Smart and Fashionable?  No.
Of a superior class?  Well, er, no.  Who says it is superior?  It is listened to by only a few, but does that mean it is superior?  I get annoyed with people equating minorities with ends of a status spectrum.

And even if it is 'superior', it can't be elitist, surely.  It doesn't rule anyone.  Favoured treatment for specific people is not encouraged - after all, anyone can listen to Radio 3.

Tommo
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marbleflugel
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« Reply #31 on: 05:32:27, 13-04-2007 »
I had a meeting the other day with someone who retired from the bbc a few months back -a modest man of formidable versatility-who quoted to me what the late Cormac Rigby said to him when they first met :  '...The secret of good continuity...is a well-stocked mind'.
He was talking about knowledge rather than information. We also touched on the debate about tone and pitch that was evidently started in the Birt/ Kenyon era.-in which for example colleagues were split into competing bidders for slots-Birtian policy.
I gave the opinion (which I think is shared quite a bit here)
that real erudition on the hoof is being endangered by some of the new formats. He thanked me for my views
(hence I guess ours if  I may make so bold) and I gave him the details of this board . Anyway this guy is living
proof of the benign influence of unfusty traditional 3-ness around musical life .
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #32 on: 22:12:21, 15-05-2007 »
The Culture Show line up this weekend includes Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips giving a master class in rock showmanship, Mark Kermode sings the praises of skiffle with a contribution from his own rockabilly band and live music from rising broken beat star Mpho Skeef. I've no objection to any of that being on tv but all in the same programme with the title of the Culture Show ? And on the same evening as the start of a seven part series "Seven Ages of Rock" ? A slight imbalance maybe.

To redress that balance a little, 23.20 on BBC2 Monday 21st, Rostropovich - A Life Remembered. 
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Jonathan
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« Reply #33 on: 13:06:20, 16-05-2007 »
Yes, I agree there is a bias toward (for want of a better phrase) "pop" culture on the culture show.  Quite often I switch it off or sit there with the mute button on and read until something classical appears. 

Having said that, I suppose the clue is in the title that it embraces culture in it's widest sense - it doesn't restrict itself to (again, for want of a better phrase) "high" or "low" or "pop" or "classical" (or whatever) culture.
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BobbyZ
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« Reply #34 on: 15:16:16, 16-05-2007 »
Quote from: Jonathan on 13:06:20, 16-05-2007

Having said that, I suppose the clue is in the title that it embraces culture in it's widest sense - it doesn't restrict itself to (again, for want of a better phrase) "high" or "low" or "pop" or "classical" (or whatever) culture.

I agree Jonathan and my own tastes aren't limited to classical. But my problem with the programme is that I remember when it began Alan Yentob trumpeting the show as a return to more serious broadcasting values. And since it started it has taken a definite change in direction towards strictly the yoof market. Epitomised by the replacement of Verity Sharp by Lauren Laverne. Verity's style isn't exactly that of a "grande dame" of culture is it but Ms Laverne clearly has no interest whatever in anything other than pop or cinema. 
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Swan_Knight
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« Reply #35 on: 10:25:09, 16-06-2007 »
You may want to look at my 'Time to Privatise the Beeb?' thread, over on the Current Affairs forum.

OK, I'll nail my colours to the mast: I object to the current BBC insistence  that its TV continuity announcers have regional or ethnic voices....it's patronising and wrong.  I want to be addressed by someone who has a good, neutral voice.  If you put a pronounced Scot/Brummie/Geordie/Scouser in this important role, you are setting out to alienate a lot of people....for example, I was recently bewildered by a radio conversation between the useless Vernon Kay and the actor Daniel Craig (who, though a product of Liverpool - like myself - has an excellent, neutral speaking voice).  Kay was babbling on about 'Casino Royale' being 'a film abaht porker'.....I didn't understand what the hell he meant, until Craig thankfully pronounced the word properly as 'poker', leaving out Kay's imposed 'r'. 

IF YOUR JOB INVOLVES YOU ADDRESSING THE NATION AS A WHOLE, HADN'T YOU BETTER MAKE SURE THAT THE NATION AS A WHOLE CAN UNDERSTAND YOU?

This obsession with 'regional' accents is foundationed in nothing more than sheer inverted snobbery, hidebound class-consciousness and sick political correctness.  Personally, I loathe ALL regional accents, with the exception of West Yorkshire. When people criticise 'RP' voices, they do so from warped and distorted 'reasoning'....EVERYONE could understand Richard Baker, Robert Dougall, Richard Osborne and their generation of broadcasters, BECAUSE they had effective, neutral speaking voices and didn't ADVERTISE where they came from.

Personally, I don't think BBCTV is worth a tinker's cuss any more.  The damage has been done and it reflects the damage done to society by the evil Thatcher/Major/Blair/Brown axis. 
« Last Edit: 11:01:30, 16-06-2007 by Swan_Knight » Logged
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marbleflugel
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« Reply #36 on: 10:57:06, 16-06-2007 »
Not having a TV, because most of it venally wastes' peoples time, i get reports from my 85 years young mum about the good stuff. She resists freeview taking the view that there ought to be something watchable on the regular (4) channels, which when you think about it is a mission statement for quality with a majority senior population, who recall-asdo   i-the classics of the 70s like Bronowski,Parkinson when he bothered with an eclectic cultural agenda- Bronowski AND Emu-  and of course  Attenborough.Dimbleby seems tobe being encouraged to mug to camera to court foreign sales, but he seems to be maintaining production values in thye eye of the stormof mediocrity. When I studied media these were benignly drummed into us as essential. My talented co-students took one look at their desecration -in-progress when they arrived in the industry and moved on to other walks of life. But what i think comes tolight is that small independent teams have production values, wheras the concrete doughnut is ruled by gormless interns in the name of inclusivity. i worked with a small crew last year for the standard 5 seconds of my left hand (well worth it for the craic and facilitation of the subjects of the show who had a ball) and this also was the word fromthe TV front line.
« Last Edit: 11:00:42, 16-06-2007 by marbleflugel » Logged
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Arnold Brown
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« Reply #37 on: 14:16:52, 19-06-2007 »
Quote from: sparklingfishface on 15:26:06, 03-04-2007
I think that this anti-intellectual, politically correct, inverse snobbery, of which this is only one example (albeit a transparent one), is one of the most depressing aspects of living in Britain today. 

On the one hand, we are told that the BBC must use its privileged position as license fee recipient to provide what the market cannot, and on the other poor old auntie is being told that "the common folk" (whoever they are?) don't want it, after all!

Why does everything have to come down to numbers? Why is it a bad thing that Radio 3 and the Today programme are not enjoyed by everyone? Why should the BBC (or anything else, for that matter) have to dilute itself to the lowest common denominator?

And why do we confuse an interest in ‘intellectual matters’, such as politics or the arts, with the ‘social exclusion’ of the poor, when in fact they are quite different?


It's the last point I'd like to take up....sometimes one finds the attitude that the poor ought not to be interested in the arts or intellectual matters, that we should content ourselves with our chav entertainments such as Big Brother and not get ideas above our station...
Note that I say WE....I live on a council estate in Kilburn (Londoners will be able to work out what that says about me socially), but I've ALWAYS loved music and the arts, from when I was a teenager...that's another thing, I never liked pop/rock music, even when I was a teenager myself;when my contemporaries were swooning over the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and now those of you who don't already know will be able to work out exactly how old I am!!), I was going to Covent Garden and the Festival Hall. (The Barbican didn't exist then...nor did ENO, it was still Sadler's Wells!!!) And sometimes I used to think that the other kids had the same opportunities as I had to learn about music, but they thought they "ought not to" because it wasn't what "real" teenagers did...in other words, THEY were the conformists, I was the REBEL!!!

The problem is financial, though - frequent visits to the opera are beyond our means (my partner is a University lecturer, and you may be aware of how badly British academics are paid!!) But...everyone can afford to go to the Proms, that's the POINT!! NO-ONE is excluded from the rich cultural life of London except by self-selection....people have been indoctrinated to believe the arts aren't for them.
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« Reply #38 on: 14:20:39, 19-06-2007 »
Quote from: marbleflugel on 10:57:06, 16-06-2007
Not having a TV, because most of it venally wastes' peoples time, i get reports from my 85 years young mum about the good stuff. essential.

Could I just ask you....veering a bit off-topic, but - do you get threatening letters from the Television Licensing Authority? I've had about half-a-dozen since I moved into my current flat, and they all start with the statement that there is no licence registered to this address.
Ah, well, no....THAT'S BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A TELEVISION!!! They seem incapable of working that out...I met the previous tenant, and he had no TV either, and HE got threatening letters too....
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #39 on: 15:09:01, 19-06-2007 »
Quote from: operacat on 14:20:39, 19-06-2007
do you get threatening letters from the Television Licensing Authority? I've had about half-a-dozen since I moved into my current flat, and they all start with the statement that there is no licence registered to this address.
Ah, well, no....THAT'S BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE A TELEVISION!!! They seem incapable of working that out...I met the previous tenant, and he had no TV either, and HE got threatening letters too....

Yes I know.  For years the other half said "throw them in the bin, owning a TV is not a legal requirement, they have no right to ask."  About a year back I was phoned by a very polite man, who to judge by his accent was probably in Bangalore taking time off from cold calling me about my mobile phone.  I explained that we had no TV.  He said they would have to visit to check.  I said, of course I understood, and they were welcome to visit with a proper search warrant.  Since then we have heard nothing.
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« Reply #40 on: 12:06:30, 20-06-2007 »
...just dumb
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Lord Byron
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« Reply #41 on: 12:20:38, 20-06-2007 »
Radio 3 is ok,the rest of it is for chavs
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Don Basilio
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« Reply #42 on: 17:22:42, 22-06-2007 »
Quote from: Don Basilio on 15:09:01, 19-06-2007
  Since then we have heard nothing.

I spoke too soon.  We now have a letter promising a visit and full instructions as to how to buy a licence before they call.  Roll Eyes
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martle
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« Reply #43 on: 17:31:48, 22-06-2007 »
Hope you stick by your demand to see a warrant, Don B!
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Milly Jones
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« Reply #44 on: 22:48:27, 28-06-2007 »
It's amazing that they never can believe that anyone may not want a television.  I didn't have one until I married and I wouldn't have one now just for myself.  I've always preferred books and radio and always will.  However, I used to receive letter after letter about not having a tv.  I ignored them in the end after having failed to convince anyone that there were alternative methods of entertainment.  Nobody ever came to check though - at least not that that I was aware of.  Perhaps they sat outside with one of those vans with the little radar thing on the top and checked that way? 

I'm sure they don't need to personally visit you by gaining access to the property do they?  I thought they could do it by technology these days.  At any rate surely it would be simple enough to hide a tv if you had one and you had notice of someone coming! 

In the end they do give up but it can take a very long time.
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