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BBC Radio 3



 
 
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
. Its output centres on classical music, but jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, world music
World music

The term world music includes Traditional music of any culture that are created and played by indigenous musicians or that are "closely informed or guided by indigenous music of the regions of their origin," including Western World music ....
, drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
 and the arts
The arts

The arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. It is a broader term than "art", which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts ....
 also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. All BBC Proms concerts are broadcast live on Radio 3, and all concerts performed by the BBC orchestras and BBC Singers are also broadcast, either live or recorded.






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BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
. Its output centres on classical music, but jazz
Jazz

Jazz is a primarily American musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, world music
World music

The term world music includes Traditional music of any culture that are created and played by indigenous musicians or that are "closely informed or guided by indigenous music of the regions of their origin," including Western World music ....
, drama
Drama

Drama is the specific Mode of fiction Mimesis in performance. The term comes from a Ancient Greek word meaning "Action " , which is derived from "to do" ....
 and the arts
The arts

The arts is a broad subdivision of culture, composed of many expressive disciplines. It is a broader term than "art", which as a description of a field usually means only the visual arts ....
 also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. All BBC Proms concerts are broadcast live on Radio 3, and all concerts performed by the BBC orchestras and BBC Singers are also broadcast, either live or recorded. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama.

History

Radio 3 is the successor station to the Third Programme
BBC Third Programme

The BBC Third Programme was a national radio network broadcast by the BBC. The network first went on air on 29 September 1946 and became one of the leading cultural and intellectual forces in Britain, playing a crucial role in disseminating the arts....
 which was originally launched on 29 September 1946. The name changed on 30 September 1967 when the BBC launched its first pop music station, Radio 1
BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a United Kingdom international radio station operated by the BBC, specialising in current popular music throughout the day, with a slight bias to Rock music & Independent music music....
. The three other national radio channels were then renamed Radio 2
BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio radio station and the List of most-listened-to radio programs in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult contemporary music or Album-orientated rock, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres....
, (formerly the Light Programme
BBC Light Programme

The Light Programme was a BBC radio station which broadcast mainstream light entertainment and music from 1945 until 1967. It opened on 29 July 1945, taking over the longwave frequency used before 1939 by the BBC National Programme....
), Radio 3 and Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
, (formerly the Home Service
BBC Home Service

The BBC Home Service was a United Kingdom national radio station which broadcast from 1939 until 1967....
). Radio 3 took over the service which had been known under the umbrella title of the Third Network and which included on the same frequency the Third Programme itself, the Music Programme and various sports and adult education programmes. All the component programmes, including the Third Programme, kept their separate identities within Radio 3 until 4 April 1970, when there was further reorganisation following publication of the BBC document Broadcasting in the Seventies.

Broadcasting in the Seventies

In July 1969, the BBC published the document Broadcasting in the Seventies, later described by a senior BBC executive, Jenny Abramsky
Jenny Abramsky

Dame Jennifer Gita Abramsky, Order of the British Empire is chairman of the UK's National Heritage Memorial Fund . The NHMF makes grants to preserve heritage of outstanding national importance....
, Head of Radio and Music, as "the most controversial document ever produced by radio". Prompted partly by the problem of rising costs, one of its main thrusts was the move towards "generic" stations, each catering for a defined audience. One early option under consideration was the reduction of the four radio networks to three, and "Day-time serious music would be the casualty". Radio 1
BBC Radio 1

BBC Radio 1 is a United Kingdom international radio station operated by the BBC, specialising in current popular music throughout the day, with a slight bias to Rock music & Independent music music....
, Radio 2
BBC Radio 2

BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio radio station and the List of most-listened-to radio programs in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult contemporary music or Album-orientated rock, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres....
 and Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
 would broadcast during the day time, while in the evening Radios 1 and 2 would merge and Radio 3 would broadcast on the vacated frequency. Rumours were circulating that Radio 3 would be abolished altogether, with The Guardian
The Guardian

Sorry, no overview for this topic
  stating that there was a strong "statistical case" against the station. However, the Director-General, Charles Curran
Charles Curran (broadcaster)

Sir Charles John Curran , was an United Kingdom television.Charles Curran was born in Dublin. He served in the Indian army from 1942-45, but left to work in the British Broadcasting Corporation Talks department....
, publicly denied this as "quite contradictory to the aim of the BBC, which is to provide a comprehensive radio service". Curran had earlier dismissed any suggestion that Radio 3's small audience was a consideration: "What is decisive is whether there is a worthwhile audience, and I mean by worthwhile an audience which will get an enormous satisfaction out of it."

Radio 3 survived, the separate titles of Music Programme and Third Programme being dropped; factual programmes, such as documentaries and current affairs, were to be passed to Radio 4
BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history....
. The document stated that Radio 3 was to have "a larger output of standard classical music" but with "some element in the evening of cultural speech programmes - poetry, plays".

There remained a question mark over the future of the Third’s speech programmes that were neither drama, poetry nor current affairs: the poet Peter Porter
Peter Porter (poet)

Peter Neville Frederick Porter is an Australian-born UK poet. He was a regular participant in the weekly meetings of The Group ....
 asked what would happen to "history, literature, travel, reminiscence etc" which had previously featured on the Third. The composer Peter Maxwell Davies
Peter Maxwell Davies

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Order of the British Empire , is an English composer and Conductor and is currently Master of the Queen's Music....
 and the music critic Edward Greenfield, writing in a feature article in Radio Times
Radio Times

Radio Times is the BBC's weekly television and radio programme listings magazine. It also provides on-line listings....
, feared that people would lose the mix of cultural experiences which expanded intellectual horizons. However, Radio 3 controller Howard Newby
P. H. Newby

Percy Howard Newby CBE was an English novelist and broadcasting administrator. He was the first winner of the Booker Prize, his novel Something to Answer For having received the inaugural award in 1969....
 replied that only the coverage of political and economic affairs would be passed to Radio 4: Radio 3 would keep drama, poetry, talks by scientists, philosophers and historians.

Campaign for Better Broadcasting

Not only did Broadcasting in the Seventies propose a realignment of the existing radio stations, it also envisaged serious cutbacks in the BBC orchestras. In September 1969, a distinguished campaign group, including Sir Adrian Boult
Adrian Boult

Sir Adrian Cedric Boult Order of the Companions of Honour was an English Conducting....
, Jonathan Miller
Jonathan Miller

Sir Jonathan Wolfe Miller, Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom comedian, neurologist, theatre and opera director, author, television presenter, humorist and sculptor....
, Henry Moore
Henry Moore

Henry Spencer Moore Order of Merit Companion of Honour Federation of British Artists was an English artist and Sculpture. He is best known for his abstract art monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as Public art....
 and George Melly
George Melly

Alan George Heywood Melly was an England jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism....
, was formed to protest against the changes. The Campaign for Better Broadcasting (its initials were, felicitously, BBC backwards) objected to "the dismantling of the Third Programme by cutting down its spoken word content from fourteen hours a week to six" and "segregating programmes into classes". Mention of the campaign even reached debate in the House of Commons.

Music Division

Although the Music Programme - a constituent part of the old Network Three – had been absorbed into Radio 3 from 1970 onwards, the Music Division continued, a section run by specialist music staff with production responsibility for the music programmes (controllers of the Third Programme and, subsequently, Radio 3, tended to be arts oriented). The head of the Music Division was then William Glock
William Glock

Sir William Frederick Glock was a British music critic and musical administrator.Glock read history at the University of Cambridge and was an organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge....
 who had held the post since the Fifties and had also taken over the running of The Proms
The Proms

The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral european classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington, London....
 in the early Sixties. Hans Keller
Hans Keller

Hans Keller was an Austrians-born United Kingdom musician and writer who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis and soccer....
 and Robert Simpson
Robert Simpson (composer)

File:72 Brian session.jpgRobert Simpson was an England composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.He is best known for his orchestral and chamber music , and for his writings on the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Anton Bruckner, Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius....
 were on his staff. Glock was succeeded in 1972 as Controller of Music by the patrician Robert Ponsonby who himself was succeeded in 1985 by John Drummond
John Drummond (arts administrator)

Sir John Richard Gray Drummond Order of the British Empire was an England arts administrator who spent most of his career at the BBC. He was the son of a master mariner in the British India line and an Australian Lied singer....
. The Music Division was eventually run down and the separation of the roles became non-existent in 1987 when Drummond also took over the controllership of Radio 3, uniting all three responsibilities: the running of the station, the music programming and The Proms.

History - The 'arts' controllers, 1967–1987

Radio 3's first three controllers tended to be speech/arts oriented and had little to do with the running of the Proms, whereas the succeeding three all directed the Proms at some point along with their duties as Controller of Radio 3.

Howard Newby, 1967–1971

Howard Newby was the last controller of the Third Programme and the first of Radio 3, overseeing the transition which resulted from the implementation of Broadcasting in the Seventies. An author, he published four novels during his stint at the Third/Radio 3, winning the first Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, also known in short as the Booker Prize, is a literary award awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or Republic of Ireland....
 for fiction in 1969. The innovations which were to see an increase in the amount of classical music on Radio 3 were due to be completed during the course of 1971. Newby moved upwards in that same year to become Director of Programmes, Radio, without having made any striking changes to the schedules.

Stephen Hearst, 1972–1978

Stephen Hearst was head of arts programmes for BBC television. According to his own account, asked by the interview board how important listening figures were he replied that the station was financed by public money and needed to consider the size of its audience; there was a minimum viable figure but this could be increased with "a lively style of broadcasting". Another leading candidate for the post, Martin Esslin
Martin Esslin

Martin Julius Esslin was a Hungary-born England Radio producer and Scriptwriter, journalist, Literary adaptation and translator, critic, academic scholar and professor of drama best known for coining the term "Theatre of the Absurd" in his work of that name ....
, head of Radio Drama, replied to the same question that the great cultural importance of Radio 3 made listening figures irrelevant. Hearst got the job. Radio staff tended to view television people as popularisers, and this turned out to be, in some measure, justified in Hearst’s case. Among early innovations were a prototype evening drivetime programme, Homeward Bound, which featured sequences of light classical music (and was dismissed by the critic Bayan Northcott as "muzak of the speeding executive" ); and a Sunday phone-in request programme, Your Concert Choice ("a flabby phone-in chat," declared the Bristol Evening Post. "What is the BBC up to?"); the phone-in element was abandoned seven months later.

Hearst also launched the arts discussion programme Critics’ Forum which lasted sixteen years, and the series of single-theme evenings and days: French Sunday, Polish Evening, American Sunday etc. A Saturday night programme of miscellaneous music, Sounds Interesting, featured, for example, "experimental fusions of popular styles", Terje Rypdal
Terje Rypdal

Terje Rypdal is a Norway guitarist and composer. His music has been released on several albums of the German record label ECM .His compositions "Last Nite" and "Mystery Man" were featured in the Michael Mann film Heat , and included on the soundtrack of the same name....
, songs from Gino Vanelli and "new work from Art Garfunkel
Art Garfunkel

Arthur Ira "Art" Garfunkel is an United States singer, poet and actor, best known as half of the Grammy Award winning folk music duo Simon & Garfunkel....
 and Prism
Prism (band)

Prism is a Canadian Rock music band formed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in 1976 by Bruce Fairbairn and Jim Vallance. Although widely associated with rock music, the band's sound incorporates progressive rock and pop rock elements....
". In 1978 Hearst was promoted to Controller, Future Policy Group.

Ian McIntyre, 1978–1987

Ian McIntyre was moved sideways from Controller of Radio 4 to Radio 3 "to create smoother waters at Radio 4", as Newby put it, but relations with most departments, especially the Music Division, became uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Aubrey Singer
Aubrey Singer

Aubrey Singer was a United Kingdom broadcasting executive. He was the controller of BBC Two from 1974 until 1978, who replaced Robin Scott and was replaced himself by Brian Wenham....
, later described by the music critic David Cairns
David Cairns (writer)

David Cairns is a United Kingdom journalist, non-fiction writer and musician. He is a leading authority on the life of Berlioz.His work in journalism has spanned a number of high profile newspapers and magazines....
 as "a dedicated populariser", had taken over as Managing Director, Radio. The possibility that a commercial classical music station with a "streamed format", like the drivetime Homeward Bound, might poach Radio 3’s listeners was raised in 1979 and Singer felt Radio 3 should get in first, rather than being forced to react later. The result was that in 1980 Homeward Bound was replaced by an extended programme called Mainly for Pleasure, a "sensitively compiled anthology of good music of all types and styles", while Saturday afternoons had a programme of shorter presenter-selected repeats from earlier in the week. As with Homeward Bound, there were no advance details of what would be played. Keller
Hans Keller

Hans Keller was an Austrians-born United Kingdom musician and writer who made significant contributions to musicology and music criticism, as well as being an insightful commentator on such disparate fields as psychoanalysis and soccer....
 complained that every programme, instead of provoking thought, was merely "thought-killing background".

Financial cuts hit Radio 3 hard in 1980 and an internal paper recommended the disbandment of several of the BBC orchestras. Industrial action by musicians delayed the start of the Proms, there were redundancies in the Music Division which was to be disbanded and morale was low. Concern was expressed that Radio 3 had lost prestige without gaining new listeners. In 1983 The Times
The Times

The Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register.The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of News International....
 devoted a column to Radio 3, outlining the diverse unhappinesses of producers, contributors and listeners. Meanwhile, senior management was dissatisfied with listening figures and Director-General Alasdair Milne
Alasdair Milne

Alasdair David Gordon Milne was a distinguished BBC producer who rose through management to become Controller of BBC Scotland, the BBC's Director of Programmes and then Director-General of the BBC in July 1982....
 suggested that presentation style was "too stodgy and old-fashioned". In 1987 a decision was taken to merge the positions of Controller, Music (held by John Drummond who had also been running the Proms), and Controller, Radio 3 (held by McIntyre). Drummond was appointed and McIntyre soon left the BBC.

History - The 'music' controllers 1987–present

Stephen Hearst expressed the view that the Controller of Radio 3 should know enough about music to run all aspects of the station, but it was not until John Drummond
John Drummond (arts administrator)

Sir John Richard Gray Drummond Order of the British Empire was an England arts administrator who spent most of his career at the BBC. He was the son of a master mariner in the British India line and an Australian Lied singer....
 was appointed in 1987 that this came about.

John Drummond, 1987–1992

John Drummond
John Drummond (arts administrator)

Sir John Richard Gray Drummond Order of the British Empire was an England arts administrator who spent most of his career at the BBC. He was the son of a master mariner in the British India line and an Australian Lied singer....
 was not a musician by profession but he had experience of administration, having run the Edinburgh Festival
Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for several simultaneous Arts festival festivals that take place during August each year in Edinburgh, Scotland....
 between 1977 and 1983. When he took over from Ian McIntyre he effectively had three jobs: Controller (Music), Director of the Proms and running Radio 3. Like Hearst, Drummond felt that the presentation of music programmes was too stiff and spoke of its "dogged dullness". He set about encouraging announcers be more natural and enthusiastic. Much of the drama output, which was predominantly of new work, he found to be "gloomy and pretentious" and he insisted on more repeats of classic performances by such actors as John Gielgud
John Gielgud

Sir Arthur John Gielgud, Order of Merit , Companion of Honour was an England actor and singer, particularly known for his warm and expressive voice, which his colleague Alec Guinness likened to "a silver trumpet muffled in silk"....
 and Paul Scofield
Paul Scofield

David Paul Scofield, Order of the Companions of Honour, Order of the British Empire was an England award-winning actor of stage and screen. Noted for his distinctive voice and delivery, Scofield received an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for his performance as Sir Thomas More in the 1966 in film film A Man for All Seasons , a reprise of...
. There were features on anniversaries: William Glock
William Glock

Sir William Frederick Glock was a British music critic and musical administrator.Glock read history at the University of Cambridge and was an organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge....
's eightieth birthday, Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett

Sir Michael Kemp Tippett Order of Merit Order of the Companions of Honour Order of the British Empire was one of the foremost English composers of the 20th century....
's eighty-fifth and Isaiah Berlin
Isaiah Berlin

Sir Isaiah Berlin, Order of Merit was a philosopher and historian of ideas, regarded as one of the leading liberal thinkers of the twentieth century....
's eightieth; a Scandinavian Season; and an ambitious Berlin
Berlin

Berlin is the Capital of Germany city and one of sixteen States of Germany of Germany. With a population of 3.4 million within its city limits, Berlin is the country's largest city....
 Weekend to mark the reunification of Germany
German reunification

German reunification took place twice after 1945: first in 1957, the Saarland was permitted to join the Federal Republic of Germany, and again on 3 October 1990, when the five re-established states of the German Democratic Republic joined the Germany , and Berlin was united into a single city-state....
 in 1990. Drummond came home from Berlin and complained that "not one single senior person in the BBC had listened to any part of it". The following year a much praised weekend was broadcast from London
London

London is the capital of both England and the United Kingdom, and the most populous municipality in the European Union. An important settlement for two millennia, History of London goes back to its founding by the Roman Empire....
 and Minneapolis-St Paul, creating broadcasting history by being the first time a whole weekend had been transmitted "live from another continent". New programmes introduced by Drummond included the experimental music show Mixing It
Mixing It

Mixing It was a radio programme showcasing experimental music. Its original remit was to showcase "crossover" music that blurred the established boundaries between genres ....
 (1990) which he described as a late-evening music strand for genres which fell between Radio 1 and Radio 3: "ethnic music, minimalism, and some kinds of experimental or advanced rock". In this it could be seen as a precursor to the current programme Late Junction
Late Junction

Late Junction is a music programme on the BBC Radio 3 station. It is presented by Fiona Talkington, Verity Sharp, and occasionally Shaheera Asante, Mark Russell , Robert Sandall or Max Reinhardt ....
. As far as the station's position within the BBC was concerned, Drummond said that the higher reaches of the corporation showed no interest whatsoever: "I can't remember ever having a serious conversation with anyone above me in the BBC about Radio 3 ... I would much rather have had the feeling that they thought it mattered what Radio 3 did." In 1992 Drummond relinquished the post of controller, while retaining the role of Director of the Proms in order to run the centenary season.

Nicholas Kenyon, 1992–1998

Nicholas Kenyon
Nicholas Kenyon

Sir Nicholas Roger Kenyon Order of the British Empire is an England music administrator, editor and writer on music. He was responsible for the BBC Proms 1996-2007 following which he was appointed Managing Director of the Barbican Centre, Europe's largest multi-arts centre....
 came to Radio 3 from being chief music critic of The Observer
The Observer

The Observer is a United Kingdom newspaper published on Sundays. In about the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, it takes a Liberalism/social democratic line on most issues....
, having had training in arts administration and run the South Bank
South Bank

The South Bank is the area in London on the southern bank of the River Thames near Waterloo station that houses a number of important cultural buildings/institutions....
’s Mozart Now Festival in 1991. He took up his post in February 1992, with the new commercial radio station Classic FM
Classic FM

The name Classic FM is used by a number of broadcasters:*Classic FM is a British classical music radio station.**Classic FM TV is a British classical music television channel....
 due to launch later in the year. One of his first acts was to send three senior producers to study classical music stations in the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
. Kenyon’s view, like Singer
Aubrey Singer

Aubrey Singer was a United Kingdom broadcasting executive. He was the controller of BBC Two from 1974 until 1978, who replaced Robin Scott and was replaced himself by Brian Wenham....
’s a decade earlier, was that Radio 3 had to make changes before the new station began broadcasting, rather than react later. Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi

Saatchi & Saatchi is a global advertising agency. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but in 2000 it was acquired by Publicis which is headquartered in Paris....
 were appointed as the station’s advertising agents. An early controversy was the axing of three popular mainstay announcers, Malcolm Ruthven, Peter Barker and Tony Scotland
Tony Scotland

Tony Scotland is a United Kingdom reporter, born in Buckinghamshire. He grew up in the West Indies, West Africa and the West Country. He left school at age 16 to become a reporter and four years later he moved to Australia, where he worked as a television newsman in Tasmania....
, as a start to creating a new style since Kenyon, like Drummond, thought the Radio 3 style was off-putting to potential new listeners. On Air and In Tune, two new drivetime-formula programmes – an innovation for Radio 3 – were to fill the breakfast and teatime slots. Brian Kay
Brian Kay

Brian Kay is an England radio presenter, conductor and singer. He is well known as the Bass in the King's Singers during the group's formative years from 1968 until 1978, and as such is to be heard on many of their 1970s LP recordings....
, late of the King’s Singers and latterly a popular presenter on Radio 2 and Radio 4, was engaged to front a three-hour programme of popular classics on Sunday mornings. Drama was to be cut by a quarter, news which drew a letter of protest to The Times
The Times

The Times is a daily national newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register.The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of News International....
, with Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, Companion of Honour, Order of the British Empire , an English people playwright, screenwriter, actor, Theatre director, poet, author, political activist, and the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature, was at the time of his death considered by many "the most influential and imitated dramatist of his generation."...
, Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard Order of Merit , Order of the British Empire, FRSL is a British screenwriter and playwright. He has written plays such as The Coast of Utopia, Arcadia , Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and Rock 'n' Roll ....
 and Fay Weldon
Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon Order of the British Empire is an England author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrays contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchy structure of Western, in particular British, society....
 among the signatories. Few of these innovations escaped criticism from either the press or listeners. Kenyon was nevertheless eager to reassure that all this was not "some ghastly descent into populism": the aim was to create "access points" for new listeners. Kenyon has admitted that in 1995 pressure was being exerted by senior management for Radio 3 to increase its ratings. There was "widespread disbelief"when he announced in the summer that a new morning programme would take the 09:00 spot from the revered Composer of the Week and would be presented by a signing from Classic FM – the disc jockey Paul Gambaccini
Paul Gambaccini

Paul Matthew Gambaccini is a radio and television presenter in the United Kingdom. He has dual United States and United Kingdom nationality, having become a British citizen in 2005....
 who had started his career with the BBC on the pop station Radio 1. The torrent of criticism, especially once the programme went on air a few weeks later, was so unrelenting that Gambaccini announced the following spring that he would not be renewing his contract with Radio 3. Aside from the controversies, Kenyon’s controllership was marked by several highly distinguished programming successes.
Henry Purcell
Fairest Isle was an ambitious project which marked 1995 – the 300th anniversary of the death of Henry Purcell
Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell...
 – with a year-long celebration of British music; Sounding the Century (1997-1999) presented a retrospective of 20th-century music. Both won awards. He also introduced a number of well received specialist programmes: the children’s programme The Music Machine, Spirit of the Age (early music), Impressions (jazz), Voices (vocal music), and the arts programme Night Waves, among them. In 1996, Radio 3 became a 24-hour station. From midnight until 06:00 the programme Through the Night filled in with radio recordings supplied by participating broadcasters of the European Broadcasting Union
European Broadcasting Union

The European Broadcasting Union is a confederation of 75 broadcasting organisations from 56 countries, and 43 associate broadcasters from a further 25....
. It still runs, put together by a small BBC team, and is taken by several other European broadcasters under the title Euroclassic Notturno. In order that live overruns did not create cumulative disruption to the daily schedule, one “fixed point” of 22:00 was created which would result, when necessary, in the curtailment or cancellation of items to allow Through the Night to begin promptly at midnight. Kenyon had in fact earlier declared that he wanted "lots of fixed points" and had already begun to introduce “stripping” – programmes that appeared regularly at the same time each day through the week. Humphrey Carpenter
Humphrey Carpenter

Humphrey William Bouverie Carpenter was an England biographers, author, and radio Presenter....
 commented: "Kenyon made no reference to the fact that the Third Programme had been founded under the motto ‘no fixed points’."

Roger Wright, 1998–present

Roger Wright took over as controller in November 1998. One of the innovations of his first year was the introduction of the relaxed late-night music programme Late Junction
Late Junction

Late Junction is a music programme on the BBC Radio 3 station. It is presented by Fiona Talkington, Verity Sharp, and occasionally Shaheera Asante, Mark Russell , Robert Sandall or Max Reinhardt ....
 with its varied mix of genres. Wright said he was addressing "this feeling people had that they didn't want to put Radio 3 on unless they were going to listen carefully". Jazz programmes and world music were given a higher profile, a new programme of light music was presented by Brian Kay
Brian Kay

Brian Kay is an England radio presenter, conductor and singer. He is well known as the Bass in the King's Singers during the group's formative years from 1968 until 1978, and as such is to be heard on many of their 1970s LP recordings....
, and Andy Kershaw
Andy Kershaw

Andy Kershaw is a British broadcaster, known predominantly as a champion of world music.His shows feature a mix of country, blues, reggae, sounds from around Africa, folk music, Asian music and spoken word performance from the likes of Ivor Cutler and John Cooper Clarke....
’s music programme, which had been dropped by Radio 1, was reintroduced on Radio 3. A BBC spokesman described the station as having "changed beyond all recognition in the last couple of years". From now on the watchword was to be quality, freeing music from its "outmoded boxes", said Wright, "not a dumbing down but a smarting up". With the BBC Charter
BBC Charter

The BBC Charter established the BBC . An accompanying Agreement recognises its editorial independence and sets out its public obligations in detail....
 due for review, Radio 3’s programming figured largely in the documentation used in support of a ten-year renewal and the BBC’s Annual Report 2003/04 was able to report that Radio 3 "achieved a record [audience] reach in the first quarter of 2004".
Bbc Radio 3
The Secretary of State
Secretary of State

Secretary of State is a commonly used title for a member of government. The role varies between countries, and in some cases there are multiple Secretaries of State in the government....
’s forward to the government’s Green Paper
Green paper

In Britain, other similar Commonwealth jurisdictions , and the Republic of Ireland, a green paper is a tentative government report of a proposal without any commitment to action; the first step in changing the law....
 in 2005 made special mention of "the sort of commitment to new talent that has made Radio 3 the largest commissioner of new music in the world" as a model for what the BBC should be about.

However, as Roger Wright reaches the tenth anniversary of his controllership, the situation has changed somewhat. The same BBC Annual Report which mentioned the record audience also reported some listener unhappiness. Critical reception of the changes had also been mixed, especially of the new style of presentation – described as "gruesome in tone and level". The world music output was criticised as "street-smart fusions" and "global pop". Radio Joint Audience Research (RAJAR
RAJAR

RAJAR was established in 1992 to operate a single audience measurement system for the radio industry in the United Kingdom. RAJAR is jointly owned by the British Broadcasting Corporation and the RadioCentre ....
) began to record lower listening figures. Substantial schedule changes were made early in 2007, some of them – including the dropping of live evening concerts – very controversial. After Kenyon’s "lots of fixed points" came Wright’s "all fixed points" with schedules now stripped across the week, contained in fixed length slots and introduced by regular presenters. In spite of these changes, the figures began to plummet. The new style Breakfast programme failed to achieve the listening figures of its predecessor.

Reversals of recent policy resulted in the dropping of Making Tracks (children’s programme), Stage and Screen (music theatre and film music) and Brian Kay’s Light Programme. Andy Kershaw’s show has transformed into the multi-presenter World on 3 and Late Junction has lost one of its four weekly editions. Mixing It (the long-running experimental music show) has also been dropped. The evening alternative music programmes have all been put back by one hour, to begin at 11.15pm, closer to the so-called "graveyard slot
Graveyard slot

A graveyard slot is a time period in which a mass media outlet's audience is very small compared to other times of the day, and therefore broadcast programming is considered far less important....
". However, protesters against the removal of the Wednesday afternoon live broadcast of Choral Evensong to Sundays have been rewarded by its return to Wednesdays and live evening concerts have been reintroduced with 30 concerts promised for 2008-09.

Important projects undertaken have been The Beethoven Experience in June 2005, when the schedules were cleared for six days to broadcast the entire works of Beethoven round the clock. The same total immersion approach was used for A Bach Christmas in December 2005 for the entire works of JS Bach for ten days in the run-up to Christmas. In February 2007, one week was similarly given over to the works of Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky.

In October 2007, Wright succeeded Nicholas Kenyon as Director of the BBC Proms while remaining in post as Controller of Radio 3.

Notable programmes

Over more than forty years the schedules have been regularly updated. However, two long-running BBC programmes currently broadcast on Radio 3 - Choral Evensong and Composer of the Week - predate even the arrival of the Third Programme in 1946.

Choral Evensong

Westminster Abbey West
The Anglican service of sung Evening Prayer
Evening Prayer (Anglican)

Evening Prayer is a liturgy in use in the Anglican Communion and celebrated in the late afternoon or evening. It is also commonly known as Evensong, especially when the office is rendered choir ....
 is broadcast weekly on Radio 3 live from cathedrals, university college chapels and churches throughout the UK. On occasion, it carries Choral Vespers
Vespers

Vespers is the evening prayer service in the Roman Catholic, Byzantine Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican, and Lutheran Liturgy of the canonical hours....
 from Catholic cathedrals, such as Westminster Cathedral
Westminster Cathedral

Westminster Cathedral in London, England, is the mother church of the Roman Catholic community in England and Wales and the Metropolitan Church and Cathedral of the Archbishop of Westminster....
, or a recorded service from choral foundations abroad. Choral Evensong is the BBC’s longest-running outside broadcast programme, the first edition having been relayed from Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey

The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, which is almost always referred to popularly and informally as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic architecture Church , in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster....
 on 7 October 1926. Its 80th anniversary was celebrated, also live from Westminster Abbey, with a service on 11 October 2006.

The programme has a strong following, revealed by various unpopular attempts in the past to change the broadcast arrangements. When the programme was moved from Radio 4 to Radio 3 in 1970 it became a monthly broadcast but vigorous protests resulted in a return of the weekly transmission on Wednesday afternoons..

More recently, in 2007 the live broadcast was switched to Sundays which again resulted in protests. The live transmission was returned to Wednesdays in September 2008 with a recorded repeat on Sunday afternoons. Choral Evensong forms part of Radio 3's remit on religious programming though the musical performance and repertoire holds interest for a wider audience.

Composer of the Week

Composer of the Week is claimed as the longest-running classical music programme in Britain, having been launched in August 1943.. It was first broadcast on the Third Programme (later Radio 3), under its original title of This Week’s Composer, in 1964 when the station’s daytime broadcasting began. Each week, in five daily programmes, the work of a particular composer is studied in detail and illustrated with musical excerpts. Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organ whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque music period and brought it to its ultimate maturity....
, Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. He was a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical music era and Romantic music eras in classical music, and remains one of the most acclaimed and influential composers of all time....
, Haydn
Joseph Haydn

Joseph Haydn was an Austrians composer. He was one of the most prominent composers of the classical music era, and is called by some the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet"....
, Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mozart showed prodigious ability from his earliest childhood in Salzburg. Already competent on keyboard and violin, he composed from the age of five and performed before European royalty; at seventeen he was engaged as a court musician in Salzburg, but grew restless and traveled in search of a better position, always...
 and Handel
HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the United Kingdom's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges....
  have all featured once most years, a different aspect of their work being chosen for study each time. However, the programme also covers more 'difficult' or less-widely known composers, with weeks devoted to Rubbra
Edmund Rubbra

Edmund Rubbra was a United Kingdom composer. He composed both instrumental and vocal works for soloists, chamber groups and full choruses and orchestras....
, Medtner
Nikolai Medtner

Nikolai Karlovich Medtner was a Russian composer and pianist.A younger contemporary of Sergei Rachmaninoff and Alexander Scriabin, he wrote a substantial number of compositions, all of which include the piano....
, Havergal Brian
Havergal Brian

William Brian , was a United Kingdom classical composer.Brian acquired a legendary status at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950s and 1960s for the 32 symphony he had managed to write, an unusually large number for any composer since Joseph Haydn or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and of which eight were completed after the age of 90....
 and the Minimalists
Minimalist music

Minimalist music is an originally American genre of experimental music or Downtown music named in the 1960s based mostly in consonance and dissonance, steady pulse , stasis and slow transformation, and often reiteration of musical phrase or smaller units such as Figure , Motif , and Cell ....
 among others. The regular presenter is currently Donald Macleod.

CD Review

CD Review is a Saturday morning programme dealing with new classical music releases, topical issues and interviews. The programme title is an update of Record Review which was broadcast on Network Three occasionally from 1949, then weekly from 1957. It includes the feature Building a Library which surveys and recommends available recordings of specific works. In 2006 Building a Library was attacked as 'elitist' for including such composers as Karl Amadeus Hartmann
Karl Amadeus Hartmann

Karl Amadeus Hartmann was a Germany composer. Some have lauded him as the greatest German symphony of the 20th century, although he is now largely overlooked, particularly in English-speaking countries....
 and Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize for Music-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States....
 and lesser-known works of great composers, at the expense of well-known mainstream works. However, the charge was rebutted by the programme's producer, Mark Lowther, who said that Radio 3 audiences wanted programmes that challenged and inspired. The regular presenter of CD Review is Andrew McGregor.

Jazz Record Requests

Jazz Record Requests was the first weekly jazz programme on the Third Programme. First presented by the jazz musician Humphrey Lyttelton
Humphrey Lyttelton

Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an England jazz musician and Presenter, and chairman of the BBC radio programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue....
, the 30-minute programme was launched in December 1964 and is still running more than forty years later. Now extended to an hour long, it still has its place on Saturday afternoons. Presenters on Radio 3 have included Steve Race
Steve Race

Stephen Russell Race Order of the British Empire, , is a United Kingdom composer, musician and radio and television presenter.Steve Race was born in Lincoln, Lincolnshire....
, Peter Clayton
Peter Clayton

Peter Clayton was a British music broadcaster and writer, best known for presenting jazz and easy listening music programs on BBC Radio 1 and 2....
 and Charles Fox
Charles Fox (jazz critic)

Charles Richard Jeremy Fox was a United Kingdom writer and broadcaster specialising in jazz.A contributor to Jazz News, Jazz Monthly and the New Statesman he was also a regular broadcaster who contributed interviews and documentary series to BBC Radio 3 and presented Jazz Today for many years....
. The current presenter is Geoffrey Smith
Geoffrey Smith

Geoffrey Smith is a British based American radio presenter, author and former jazz percussionist. Smith is the regular presenter of BBC Radio 3's Jazz Record Requests and also presents other programmes on the network....
.

Pied Piper

Pied Piper was an iconic children’s programme, presented by the 29-year-old early music specialist, David Munrow
David Munrow

David Munrow was a musician and early music historian....
, it had the sub-title Tales and Music for Younger Listeners and ran from August 1971 until 1976. Lively and varied, it was aimed at the 6-12 age group, though much older children and adults also listened. The programme ran for five series and a total of 655 episodes until it was brought to an end by Munrow’s untimely death in May 1976.

The Radio 3 controversy

Controller Nicholas Kenyon summed up the perennial problem of Radio 3 as "the tension between highbrow culture and popular appeal ….the cost of what we do and the number of people who make use of it”: elitism versus populism (or ‘dumbing down’) and the question of cost per listener. Tensions have been manifest within the BBC itself: in 1969, two hundred members of the BBC staff protested to the director general at changes which would ‘emasculate’ Radio 3, while managing director of radio Ian Trethowan described the station in a memorandum as "a private playground for elitists to indulge in cerebral masturbation". Later, former Radio 3 controller John Drummond complained that the senior ranks of the BBC took no interest in what he was doing. There have also been tensions between corporate policy affecting the Third/Radio 3 and what the artistic world and sections of the audience wanted:
  • The Third Programme Defence Society (1957) opposed cuts in broadcasting hours and the removal of what the BBC considered "too difficult and too highbrow". Supported by TS Eliot, Ralph Vaughan William, Laurence Olivier
  • The Campaign for Better Broadcasting (1969) opposed proposed cuts in Radio 3’s speech output. Supported by Sir Adrian Boult, Jonathan Miller, Henry Moore, George Melly.
  • The Gambaccini issue (1995-96): listeners and press critics protested at the introduction of Paul Gambaccini (a former Radio 1 and Classic FM presenter), seen as part of a wider move towards popularisation, to compete with Classic FM and to increase ratings. Gambaccini is quoted as saying: “I had a specific mission to invite [Radio 4’s] Today listeners to stay with the BBC rather than go to Classic FM.”
  • Friends of Radio 3 (FoR3) (2003-present), a listeners’ campaign group set up to express concern at changes to the station's style and scheduling, including the shift to presenter-led programmes stripped through the week, as on Classic FM and other mass-audience music stations. Officially, the BBC stated that "[the] network's target audience has been redefined and broadened and the schedule began to be recast to move towards this during 1999." The group’s stated aim is "To engage with the BBC, to question the policies which depart from Radio 3's remit to deliver a high quality programme of classical music, spoken arts and thought, and to convey listener concerns to BBC management." Supported by Dame Gillian Weir, Robin Holloway, Andrew Motion, Dame Margaret Drabble.
In the current climate of intense competition in the radio industry, the RAJAR listening figures are scrutinised every quarter by both broadcasters and the press. When listening figures showed an abrupt downturn from 2004, Friends of Radio 3 claimed that recent changes had caused the station to lose listeners. Dramatic schedule changes were introduced in February 2007. However, some of these were widely unpopular, and the year 2007/08 saw record low listening figures Adjustments in September 2008, e.g. reintroducing some live concerts, reversed some of the policies.

Technical innovations

Radio 3 has led the way in many fields. A number of broadcasts are experimental; for instance one play in the late seventies consisted mainly of sound effects, recorded binaurally
Binaural recording

Binaural recording is a method of recording Sound recording which uses a special microphone arrangement intended for replay using headphones. Dummy head recording refers to a specific method of capturing the audio, generally using a Bust including Pinna ....
, to be listened to wearing headphones. Radio 3 was the first channel to broadcast in stereo
Stereophonic sound

Stereophonic sound, commonly called stereo, is the reproduction of sound, using two or more independent Sound recording and reproduction channels, through a symmetrical configuration of loudspeakers, in such a way as to create a pleasant and natural impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing....
 and in quadraphonic
Quadraphonic

Quadraphonic sound – the most-widely-used early term for what is now called 4.0 stereo – uses four channels in which speakers are positioned at the four corners of the listening space, reproducing signals that are independent of one another....
 (matrix HJ), a format which enjoyed only a brief success. To improve the quality of outside broadcasts over telephone lines the BBC designed a NICAM
NICAM

NICAM stands for Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex. It is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks....
 style digitisation technique called pulse code modulation running at a sample rate of 14,000 per second per channel. It later designed digital recording machines (transportable) sampling at the same rate. In June 2005 in conjunction with Radio 3’s Beethoven Experience (a week exclusively devoted to the works of Beethoven played round-the-clock), the BBC trialled its first music downloads over the internet. The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra under Gianandrea Noseda
Gianandrea Noseda

Gianandrea Noseda is an Italian conducting. He studied piano, musical composition and conducting in Milan. His further conducting studies have been with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev....
 played all nine Beethoven symphonies and the recordings were offered as free mp3 downloads. The stated aim was "to gauge audiences' appetite for music downloads and their preferred content, and will inform the development of the BBC strategy for audio downloads and on demand content". The experiment was wildly successful, attracting 1.4 million downloads. There was anger among the major classical record labels who considered it unfair competition and "devaluing the perceived value of music". As a result, no further free downloads have been offered and the BBC Trust has ruled out any classical music podcasts with extracts longer than one minute. In October 2007, Radio 3 collaborated with English National Opera
English National Opera

English National Opera is the national opera company of England, and one of two opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden....
 in presenting a live video stream of a performance of Carmen
Carmen

Carmen is a French op?ra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Hal?vy, based on the Carmen by Prosper M?rim?e, first published in 1845, itself influenced by the narrative poem "The Gypsies" by Pushkin....
, "the first time a UK opera house has offered a complete production online". In September 2008, Radio 3 launched a filmed series of concerts. These will available to watch live and thereafter each concert will be available online for 7 days "in high quality vision".

Radio 3 is now available world wide on the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
 and is broadcast on digital radio in the United Kingdom
Digital radio in the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, the roll-out of digital radio is proceeding since test transmissions were started by the BBC in 1990. The UK currently has the world's biggest digital radio network, with 103 transmitters, with two national Digital Audio Broadcasting DAB ensemble and forty eight local and regional DAB ensembles broadcasting over 2...
 via DAB
Digital audio broadcasting

Digital Audio Broadcasting , also known as EUREKA, is a digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations, used in several countries, particularly in the UK and Europe....
, on Freeview, Freesat
Freesat

Freesat is a United Kingdom free-to-air digital satellite television service which is a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc. The service was marketed from 6 May 2008 and offers a satellite alternative to the Freeview service on digital terrestrial television, with a selection of channels available without subscription for users purcha...
, Sky Digital
Sky Digital (UK & Ireland)

Sky Digital is the brand name for British Sky Broadcasting's digital satellite television and satellite radio service, transmitted from SES Astra satellites located at Astra 28.2?E and Eutelsat's Eurobird 1 satellite at 28.5?E....
, Virgin Media and other subscription platforms.

Controllers of the Third Programme and Radio 3

  • 1946–48 George Barnes
    George Barnes (BBC)

    Sir George Barnes was a British broadcasting executive, who was a station Controller of both BBC Radio and later BBC Television in the 1940s and 1950s....
  • 1948–52 Harman Grisewood
    Harman Grisewood

    Harman Grisewood was an English radio actor, radio and television executive, novelist and non-fiction writer. He acted as literary executor to the poet David Jones , a lifelong friend....
  • 1953–58 John Morris
  • 1959–71 Howard Newby
    P. H. Newby

    Percy Howard Newby CBE was an English novelist and broadcasting administrator. He was the first winner of the Booker Prize, his novel Something to Answer For having received the inaugural award in 1969....
  • 1972–78 Stephen Hearst
  • 1979–87 Ian McIntyre
  • 1987–92 John Drummond
    John Drummond (arts administrator)

    Sir John Richard Gray Drummond Order of the British Empire was an England arts administrator who spent most of his career at the BBC. He was the son of a master mariner in the British India line and an Australian Lied singer....
  • 1992–98 Nicholas Kenyon
    Nicholas Kenyon

    Sir Nicholas Roger Kenyon Order of the British Empire is an England music administrator, editor and writer on music. He was responsible for the BBC Proms 1996-2007 following which he was appointed Managing Director of the Barbican Centre, Europe's largest multi-arts centre....
  • 1998–present Roger Wright


Works cited

  • BBC Annual Report and Accounts, 2003/2004, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 2004
  • Briggs, Asa, The BBC: The First Fifty Years, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985 ISBN 0192129716
  • Carpenter, Humphrey, The Envy of the World: Fifty Years of the BBC Third Programme and Radio 3, 1946-1996, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996 ISBN 0297818309
  • Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Review of the BBC’s Royal Charter: A strong BBC, independent of government (government Green Paper), 2005
  • Drummond, John, Tainted by Experience: A Life in the Arts, London: Faber & Faber, 2001 ISBN 057120922X
  • Radio Times, 1923-present, London: British Broadcasting Corporation ISSN 0033-8060 02


See also

  • List of BBC radio stations


External links