Making waves

摘要

Current proposals for the BBC are likely to bring momentous changes, attempting to resolve, among other issues, the conflict between the BBC's public service broadcasting role and its commercial activities. Meanwhile, Radio 3 listeners, it can be argued, have already suffered much from management's attempts to make the station 'more accessible' and to compete with its commercial rival, Classic FM, which still has more than twice as many listeners. But this year has brought better news both for the BBC and for the listeners' pressure group Friends of Radio 3. According to Radio Audience Joint Research [RAJAR], Radio 3's weekly audience for the first quarter of 2016 increased by more than 1.5% compared with the same quarter in 2015, to almost 2.12 million. This coincided with changes that reversed some of the most complained-of aspects of Radio 3's presentational style.