Will be giving Hazlewood a miss on Saturday, but iwll probably be at both Proms on Sunday (our survival technique being to take Wed-Thurs, plus the following Monday off work).

Over at TOP a certain contingent are, predictably, laying into Hazlewood and the general presenting style of this evening's Prom broadcast.

So let me get this straight: they know it's Hazlewood, they know he's both conducting and presenting, they know they hate him, and yet they still tuned in?  Did they do this just so they could legitimately moan about it?  Have they forgotten that handy little thing called the off switch? 

I opted not to attend this evening's concert because of Hazlewood (the conducting's not unspeakably dreadful, it's the inane and frequently factually incorrect chat that I would rather do without) so why would I tune in to the concert on TV, where there's an even higher chat-to-music ratio?

Instead, I have had rather a pleasant evening watching and listening to a backlog of recorded programmes.

Thats was a great tv series Reiner!! The Muppet Show was one of those all time classic comedy shows, that can be watched for eons!!

Agreed Ruth. Me and Mrs BBM did a similar thing to what you did, ie what we did was to watch one of the Poldark series that we are going though at the moment. MrsBBM is calling me Cap'n now!!!! I ask you. She says I am from  that stock!!!

I don't visit TOP any more. On the other hand, I don't see any reason in principle why people shouldn't continue to complain about a presenter they don't like, rather than simply turning off - certainly if they're licence-payers, they have a right to express their opinion, positive or negative, about the service they're receiving. If I was employed as a presenter by Radio 3 I wouldn't expect my listeners to have no say on what they thought of my work.

I agree with tinners, we are licence payers therefore we are entitled to have a say in what we have purchased.

But, as Ron points out, some of the threads/posts at TOP border on the libellous and some seem fuelled by pure hate (for want of a better word) and then there is the spectacle of posters attacking other posters, sometimes in a most vicious manner.

I go over there and I read, and particularly anything written by wilf and french frank (always the voice of reason!) and if he was still posting, smittims was a fount of knowledge, but in the main they seem to be bullies shouting their opinions from the soapbox.

I've not visited TOP for a couple of weeks, IGI: it's become more and more dispiriting, and there's been no reason for a return. Such time as I've had has been spent here recently - most of it fairly busily, one way or the other. 

Although of course the licence fee does not cover radio, so R3 etc is free...

I've said the same myself in the past, although one has to admit that it probably does cost some money to run BBC Radio, the BBCSO, the BBC Wobbly Warblers, etc...   and that must be coming from the Licence Fee in the end    However, it can't be very much, since my fees for appearances on R4 have been Excess Baggage - £22 for 30 in-studio mins and BBC R4 News - £19 (for covering a terrorism story at 5am when they couldn't find "their own correspondent").  It's amazing it's even worth writing out a cheque for such piffling and derisory amounts, really     However, it was such fun chatting to Sandi Toksvig for half an hour I'd have done it for nowt anyhow (as they probably suspected...)