Classical music must be doing something wrong

Classical music's website of choice Slipped Disc today runs a story on the latest RAJAR UK radio listening figures. This story states that a "...record number of individual hours was spent listening to [BBC Radio 3]. They must be doing something right". Which is good news; but only for those who believe that facts should never stand in the way of a good story. Because simple arithmetic shows that BBC Radio 3 is not doing very much right, while UK classical radio in its entirety is doing something wrong. 

 In the quarter ended September 2024, BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM audiences were 2.039m and 4.416m respectively. Which gives a total audience for the two classical stations of 6.455m. For the same quarter in September 2023 the audiences were 2.002m and 4.467m, giving a total classical radio audience 12 months previously of 6.469m. 

So BBC Radio 3's "something right" turns out to be a fractional increase in its audience year on year, and a contribution towards a fractional shrinking of the classical radio audience. Moreover, in his headline Norman Lebrecht identifies the Classic FM audience as a "record low", but fails to explain that this record low is still more than twice the size of Radio 3's latest  "record audience".  

All of which is simply the very predictable outcome of the abysmal quality of contemporary classical music journalism, of covert agendas, and of BBC Radio 3's futile strategy of doing nothing more than stealing the Classic FM audience. A healthy and resilient classical audience needs to be challenged, not pandered to.

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