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BBC: New strategy for Classical Music prioritises Quality, Agility and Impact

The BBC Singers are a cultural phenomenon. A truly great ensemble and the recipients of countless commissions. Membership of this professional ensemble has led to many great careers: opera stars, oratorio staples, soloists etc.

Cheap at the price. But obviously not valuable to those in charge.
 
Well i did not know that the bbc has five full time Orchestras, how many people would that add up to,
Now the licence fee, is to be closed down, in a couple of years, and the beeb, will have to generate their own income, the axe is falling, it will always fall on the people, who actually do the work, so the beeb can try and keep the hundreds of upper management, on fat-cat salary's,
The news will be next, how many sports commentators are there just on the bbc news, there is about seven just on the six am news, all doing a two minute story, the beeb is so overmanned, they will have to run it like any other business, that will be fun to watch, £500,000, a year for a news reader, don't make me laugh,
 
I've always stuck up for the notion of the BBC and its license fee. After-all, they have been my employers for nearly half my life. I'm happy to think the license fee worth the money for those parts I consume: Radio 3 (especially the Proms and other concerts), Radio 4 (especially Today), serious journalism, documentaries and, occasionally, superb television drama (e.g. Happy Valley).

But today's news makes me really start to think the unthinkable. Is the Reithian model so out of step with the reality of people's media consumption as to be flogging a dead horse? If the BBC can't do something unique and world-class like the Singers, what is the point of it? In what conceivable way is it distinctive?
 
I don't disagree with many of the sentiments expressed above, quality in broadcasting costs money and when it is spent wisely great things happen. The sad fact is that the vast majority of the uk population want everything for free, I'm no different of course beyond recognising that all you get for free is dross. Has anyone heard Rob Beckett or Rylan Clark Neal mangling the english language on Radio 2 at the weekends, beyond depressing and if that really is the future of the BBC, can it be killed off now please. As a former employee of Aunty I am saddened by the way it's going.
 
The writing has been on the wall for years for publically funded arts....no surprises here.

From the right the arts are attacked for wanting public funding, as economically unproductive, a home for dissenters, and no business for the state..... While from the left the clamour for inclusion, diversity and equality has little sympathy for an art form rooted in Dead White European Males.... And mostly still is.

I don't know what the answer is. But for the time being, successful institutions will need to embrace corporate patronage, and all the attendant evils that will bring.

The lack of strategy and collapse of the education system has led to a point where most people think art and culture is a luxury, and are unable to think of life other than in terms of utility. Where is Purpose ?
 
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For the people who think five public broadcaster orchestras in a country of sixty million is somehow excessive... it's actually pretty low.

Ireland has five million people and one and a half orchestras run by the public broadcaster. So the UK should really have at least twelve.

Gernany has one per Land (but feel free to apply the disclaimer that "classical" music is basically traditional German music, so there's a double imperative to support it).

Part of the problem is also the elitism in "art music" which makes it hard to win support from the hard Left, but I have never bought into the idea that there was such a thing as "rich people's" music...
 
... here we are: stuck in the Middle, with nothing to view...


Current govt policy: Tories will Tory..:

madsen.jpg
 
timH said:
So agility is the new word for cuts then
Click to expand...

Agility, future-proofing, flexibility, new initiatives, opportunities, investing more widely, best possible value, stronger partnerships, strategy builds on insights.. blah blah blah.

Bullshit bingo full house.

I'm not a massive classical fan but truly sad to see the arts decimated by the ****wit philistine spiv government we endure.

There's a series of screenings this weekend at Cafe Oto of UK TV from the 1960s and early 70s featuring avant garde jazz and improvised music. You cannot imagine my joy as a teenager when Napalm Death appeared on a BBC childrens music show. Now it's almost unthinkable that the BBC would devote airtime to adventurous music like that. Instead we get another Tom Jones night on BBC4...
 
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