...and handed in to Patrick tonight.
I have just returned from presenting Patrick with half a rain forest's worth of papers and notes.
These "Quickies" are finito!!!!
Have fun, Patrick!
Thursday, 15 January 2009
Tuesday, 13 January 2009
Q1: Design/marketing solutions...
Possible solutions:
Greater use of podcasts / multimedia downloads - such as the comprehensive selection available on the Classic FM website.
Use classical recordings in mainstream shows / TV / film soundtracks.
Integrate classical music into school curriculum.
Greater advertising via other BBC channels, radio and TV.
Use celebrities to endorse programming/broadcasts.
Shows at popular/peak times (breakfast/drivetime evenings) to play "easily accessible" classics - nothing to heavy.
Incorporate Radio 3 programming into "mainstream" TV schedule and programmes (eg. East Enders)
BBC Radio 3 is taking the bold step of trying to attract teenagers because it fears its audience is dying off.
By Charlotte Gardner and Stephen Adams
The classical music station has launched a programme to help teenage music students improve their grades because its average listener is 57 years old. Only one in eight of its listeners is under 35.
While today's teenagers are more likely to listen to hip-hop or indie music, station managers believe they can convince young people that Radio 3 can be "edgy" too.
But rather than produce something that is dumbed-down, Radio 3 has decided to broadcast an educational programme.
Discovering Music will take a piece of music from the A-level or GSCE curricula each week and break it down - by examining a few bars, a particular instrument or its rhythm - to show its composition. The piece is then reassembled to be listened to with fresh ears.
Study materials including listening notes by the senior examiner John Arkell are being made available in monthly emails, while the study aids will be put online.
Edwina Wolstencroft, editor of Radio 3 and co-ordinator of the project, said she hoped teenagers would discover the delights of the station through listening to the Sunday afternoon programme.
She said: "We're hoping that they initially come to us because their teacher points them towards Discovering Music as a way of learning more. But that once they've found us they find all sorts of other programmes - Late Junction, the world music and jazz we do, and of course the core classical - and that they will stay with us for the sheer pleasure of listening to Radio 3."
Discovering Music was originally created for serious music lovers rather than pupils, but has been adapted for a younger audience after anecdotal evidence suggested some A-level music students were listening to it. Wolstencroft stressed that the programme would still be for anyone who wanted to listen to it.
Natalie Clein, 31, a prominent cellist, welcomed the idea. She said: "I think that the world music and Late Junction are definitely edgy enough. The interesting thing about what's going on now is that young people do take music from all areas. Technology takes away some of the 'Radio 3, its not my thing' prejudices, so those barriers are breaking down. I think it's a very exciting time, and its good that Radio 3 realises that."
Natalie Clein
But she added a word of caution for anyone at Radio 3 anticipating a teenage stampede. She said: "Most people won't do what their teachers or parents tell them to; they'll do something because it feels exciting and different to discover for themselves, so its more likely to happen in a subtler way. You give them gateways that are interesting and valuable, not dumbing-down in any way, and you leave the rest up to them".
Paul Stokes, news editor of the New Musical Express, said Radio 3 had every chance of attracting teenagers as regular listeners. He said: "Music is so much less tribal now that it used to be. People are so much more eclectic in their musical tastes, so there's no reason why they should not make that jump to jazz and classical."
The problem was the way such music was "packaged", he said, with classical music often portrayed in a sterile manner that did not engage young people.
If Discovering Music avoided being "headmasterly" and could be relevant to a younger audience, he said all that was needed for success was for "one person to email it to his friends and say, 'listen to this'".
Young people switching on to a classical music station?
Classic FM's programme controller, Roger Lewis, tells Louise Jury how it's done.
(Tuesday, 15 May 2001)
Here's a teaser:
Here's a teaser:
Which radio station registered a 104 per cent increase in its youth market last year?
Kiss, Capital or Radio 1, you might suggest. You'd be wrong. The station that now has 6 per cent of its audience under the age of 15 just over 400,000 of them listening for more than five hours a week, according to the official RAJAR figures out last week is that repository of soothing classics, Classic FM.
That represents a 15 per cent increase, quarter on quarter. By comparison, young people account for 5 per cent of the audience of Radio 4, where controller Helen Boaden last month launched her new children's show, Go4It; and for 4 per cent of Radio 3's audience.
Roger Lewis, the station's managing director and programme controller, explains that Classic FM has been going out of its way to encourage young listeners. There are commercial reasons. "They are our future audience," he says simply.
And then there is an educational crusade from a man who sits on the boards of assorted musical charities, chairs a committee on the national music and ballet schools for the Department for Education and speaks glowingly of his own inspirational music teacher at school. "We believe that a classical music radio experience can be as relevant to a younger audience as it is to an older audience," he says.
In programming terms, that translates into direct appeals to the under-15s. At 8am there is the School Run, when parents and children can make requests. Children are encouraged to submit fantasy concert requests for broadcast. And a series of classic tales, including Dawn French narrating Romeo and Juliet and Des Lynam reading Hansel and Gretel won a 40 per cent increase in children's listening on Sunday evenings.
Lewis believes the use of symphonic music in films such as Gladiator and Titanic has made it easier to introduce young people to "the epic sound" of some classics. "There is a tradition of serious composers writing for the movies: Walton, Prokofiev, Britten, Vaughan Williams. It's a great way to attract a young audience."
The breaking down of boundaries between musical styles has helped, too. William Orbit, a producer who has worked with Madonna, is a huge classical fan and has made several appearances on Classic FM. "It says to kids, 'This is something that has relevance'," Lewis says.
The station has raised money through its own charitable trust to supply a video of best teaching practice to teachers, to be launched this week. With the Arts Council of England, it has run a scheme giving families who have never attended a classical music concert a chance to do so. And this will be the third year of its Music Teacher of the Year scheme. Last year there were over 500 entries, with joint top place going to James Wood, from St Bede's Secondary School in Surrey, and Diana Mortlock from a primary school in Leicestershire. They each won a trip to the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland and £10,000 worth of equipment for their schools.
Roger Lewis, who was once head of music at Radio 1, says his experience there made him aware of the importance of radio for young audiences. He refutes critics' claims that Classic FM offers only an unchallenging range of classical music hits, but is keen that classical music should not be regarded as intimidating or élitist.
"Our starting point as a broadcaster is to create access for a broad-based mass audience for classical music," he says. "Underlying that is a belief that music has the power to change people's perceptions of their lives for the greater good." Starting with the kids.
Kiss, Capital or Radio 1, you might suggest. You'd be wrong. The station that now has 6 per cent of its audience under the age of 15 just over 400,000 of them listening for more than five hours a week, according to the official RAJAR figures out last week is that repository of soothing classics, Classic FM.
That represents a 15 per cent increase, quarter on quarter. By comparison, young people account for 5 per cent of the audience of Radio 4, where controller Helen Boaden last month launched her new children's show, Go4It; and for 4 per cent of Radio 3's audience.
Roger Lewis, the station's managing director and programme controller, explains that Classic FM has been going out of its way to encourage young listeners. There are commercial reasons. "They are our future audience," he says simply.
And then there is an educational crusade from a man who sits on the boards of assorted musical charities, chairs a committee on the national music and ballet schools for the Department for Education and speaks glowingly of his own inspirational music teacher at school. "We believe that a classical music radio experience can be as relevant to a younger audience as it is to an older audience," he says.
In programming terms, that translates into direct appeals to the under-15s. At 8am there is the School Run, when parents and children can make requests. Children are encouraged to submit fantasy concert requests for broadcast. And a series of classic tales, including Dawn French narrating Romeo and Juliet and Des Lynam reading Hansel and Gretel won a 40 per cent increase in children's listening on Sunday evenings.
Lewis believes the use of symphonic music in films such as Gladiator and Titanic has made it easier to introduce young people to "the epic sound" of some classics. "There is a tradition of serious composers writing for the movies: Walton, Prokofiev, Britten, Vaughan Williams. It's a great way to attract a young audience."
The breaking down of boundaries between musical styles has helped, too. William Orbit, a producer who has worked with Madonna, is a huge classical fan and has made several appearances on Classic FM. "It says to kids, 'This is something that has relevance'," Lewis says.
The station has raised money through its own charitable trust to supply a video of best teaching practice to teachers, to be launched this week. With the Arts Council of England, it has run a scheme giving families who have never attended a classical music concert a chance to do so. And this will be the third year of its Music Teacher of the Year scheme. Last year there were over 500 entries, with joint top place going to James Wood, from St Bede's Secondary School in Surrey, and Diana Mortlock from a primary school in Leicestershire. They each won a trip to the Verbier Music Festival in Switzerland and £10,000 worth of equipment for their schools.
Roger Lewis, who was once head of music at Radio 1, says his experience there made him aware of the importance of radio for young audiences. He refutes critics' claims that Classic FM offers only an unchallenging range of classical music hits, but is keen that classical music should not be regarded as intimidating or élitist.
"Our starting point as a broadcaster is to create access for a broad-based mass audience for classical music," he says. "Underlying that is a belief that music has the power to change people's perceptions of their lives for the greater good." Starting with the kids.
(Source: The Independent)
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