Radio 3 enjoyed a classical music monopoly for the first
quarter of a century of its existence until the arrival of Classic FM in 1992.
You could, of course, hear drama and talks over on Radio 4.
Radio 3 even covered current affairs on programmes such as Six Continents (1979-87). There was a smattering of classical music
elsewhere on the dial on Radio 2 and Radio 4 on These You Have Loved, Baker's
Dozen and Melodies for You. Even
some of the new ILR stations got in on the act - Capital sponsored the Wren
Orchestra of London - but it amounted to no more than an hour or so a week. So
when Classic FM came along Radio 3 had to up is game.
Ahead of Classic FM's September 1992 launch, in June the BBC announced 'BBC Radio 3 FM's New Look'
with controller Nicholas Kenyon explaining he wanted to create "access points"
for new listeners, whatever that meant. They appointed Saatchi and Saatchi as
advertising agents and in the Autumn launched the glossy BBC Music Magazine.
The morning sequence of records linked by a staff announcer,
Morning Concert, was dropped in
favour of On Air, while the teatime Mainly for Pleasure would become In Tune. The BBC described the new
programmes as "two weekday programmes with named presenters, of mostly
popular classical music with new headlines, weather, traffic information,
previews, news of the music world". The main loss for listeners was a
reduction in drama on the station. "Music Plus" was the strapline,
but one critic described this as a euphemism for "Drama Less".
This is how On Air
sounded when its first edition was heard on the morning of Monday 13 July 1992.
Piers Burton-Page, a music presenter and producer and previously a continuity
announcer and newsreader on both Radio 3 and Radio 4.
Those news headlines that Piers reads every 20 minutes were an unwelcome addition with Kenyon later admitting "our presenters talked too much" Adding "I now tell them to be economical with words. I also accept that perhaps we went slightly too far and threw out too many well-known programme labels."
Those news headlines that Piers reads every 20 minutes were an unwelcome addition with Kenyon later admitting "our presenters talked too much" Adding "I now tell them to be economical with words. I also accept that perhaps we went slightly too far and threw out too many well-known programme labels."
In 1993 the BBC produced this glossy 24-page booklet
promoting Radio 3's wares. The quote on the back cover from composer Harrison
Birtwistle hints that this was the BBC firing its big guns at Classic FM:
"Radio 3 is in danger of becoming the last refuge of the serious
music-lover. In times when concert programmes show a remarkable similarity, and
classical music through the popular media is reduced to a mere cosmetic
continuum to our lives, its excellence is increasingly more important".
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