BBC planning to launch four new radio stations

[Midas]

The Radio 1 spin-off will focus on music from the 2000s and 2010s, catering to the appetite from young audiences for recent nostalgia.

The station will feature "lesser-heard gems" from high-profile artists alongside their more well-known tracks, and will also be used to develop new on-air and production talent, the corporation said.

The Radio 2 spin-off will provide "a distinctive take on pop nostalgia" from the 50s, 60s and 70s, the BBC said, and will feature "some of the people who shaped the cultural landscape at the time" as well as some of the station's current presenters.

It will "bring heritage artist catalogues and stories to life in a much deeper and more richly textured manner than the main mixed-genre Radio 2 schedule can allow", the corporation said.

Bosses will hope it will entice some of Radio 2's former listeners back, particularly in older demographics.

Radio 3 will also get a new station to focus on calming classical music, aimed at helping listeners "unwind, de-stress and escape the pressures of daily life".

It will feature newly-released pieces and new compositions alongside performances of classic works. The BBC said the station would champion music by living composers including a new generation of artist-composers who receive a limited amount of airplay on other UK stations.

It will support the BBC Proms and feature content from the BBC orchestras and choirs as well as BBC Introducing acts.

Finally, the existing Radio 1 Dance station, currently available as a stream on BBC Sounds, will launch on DAB+ with new and enhanced content.

The expanded station will feature new commissions including programmes that develop young talent, alongside existing content.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-68226389

https://thecaretaker.bandcamp.com/track/f5-aching-cavern-without-lucidity

[Midas]

Why do they believe they have to resort to "old music for old people" age demographic segregation

There's got to be another way

[BlodwynPig]

soulseek

[Minami Minegishi]

Radio 3 will also get a new station to focus on calming classical music, aimed at helping listeners "unwind, de-stress and escape the pressures of daily life".

It will feature newly-released pieces and new compositions alongside performances of classic works. The BBC said the station would champion music by living composers including a new generation of artist-composers who receive a limited amount of airplay on other UK stations.

It will support the BBC Proms and feature content from the BBC orchestras and choirs as well as BBC Introducing acts.

OK, so as someone who frequently listens to ambient and calming classical music I think this sounds pretty good. I found most classical music that gets played on the main stations to be very bombastic colonial Empire sounding shit and can't stand it at all. However, that final sentence makes it sound gash.

[hermitical]

very bombastic colonial Empire sounding shit

Doesn't sound like the Radio 3 I listen to?

[iamcoop]

Beginning of the end. Desperate. The death knell.

[bgmnts]

Ready Player Radio One.

[greencalx]

Yeah the R3 spin-off sounds like Classic FM without the ads.

[Uncle TechTip]

Beginning of the end. Desperate. The death knell.

Give over, it's a set of BBC Sounds streams, hardly the most ground-breaking move. But it's actually a good sign that the BBC are prepared to compete with Absolute Decade Jukebox.

[DelurkedToHelp]

Gutting local radio with the excuse that they've run out of money only to announce a little over a year later that they want to set up 4 national radio stations with content that the commercial sector already covers. Top-notch stuff from an organisation that always plays the public service broadcaster card when criticised.

[iamcoop]

Give over, it's a set of BBC Sounds streams, hardly the most ground-breaking move. But it's actually a good sign that the BBC are prepared to compete with Absolute Decade Jukebox.

According to what I heard on radio 4 earlier on the funding is coming out of the pre-existing BBC radio budgets, so forgive me for thinking that taking money away from Radio 3 etc (after totally decimating local radio last year) to create a "Radio 1 spin-off that will focus on music from the 2000s and 2010s, catering to the appetite from young audiences for recent nostalgia" isn't exactly an exciting new step.

[Terry Torpid]

Yeah the R3 spin-off sounds like Classic FM without the ads.

I can't get Radio 3 in my work van, so I've resorted to Classic. It seemed alright at first, if you can tolerate the likes of Alexander Armstrong and Aled Jones, but fuck me it gets repetitive. It's the same 50 tracks, like you'd get on a compilation CD. One week they played The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra about five times across different shows (including twice on one particular day).

I think the people running each slot don't double check the playlists from the other slots for repetitions, or maybe they assume people only listen for say an hour a day, so they think they can get away with playing the same thing in the afternoon as they did in the morning.

A lot of film score stuff too. "And that was Mozart's Piano Concerto 21 in C major. Up next, John Williams with the Theme from Superman..."

[Minami Minegishi]

Doesn't sound like the Radio 3 I listen to?

I tend to listen to it in the daytime, or used to. Maybe it has changed. LyricFM over here in Ireland is equally guilty of this so it's probably me.

If I hear a big bass drum I'm out. I just picture all the proms cunts.

[Sebastian Cobb]

They'll probably be mostly robodj'd or voice-tracked (this is where the 'DJ' just records the links and they're automatically dropped in between the records).

The problem with this sort of expansion is it usually squeezes the existing stations into doing more with less.

6 Music and 1xtra are great, but if you look back at the amount of extra funding and effort that was put into radio 1 before them (live concerts, clubs, ob's etc) a lot has been lost I think.

[iamcoop]

To be fair we've all got sick of hearing twenty year olds saying things like "I'd really love to tune into BBC Sounds more, but it just isn't catering to my appetite for recent nostalgia". So many Gen-Z's heading to Spotify with a heavy heart.

[LordMorgan]

They're missing out the 80s and 90s

My era

Boo hiss

[Oosp]

It's a fuggin dizz grace. If they have all this spare money in the radio budgets, why has BBC4 been hung out to dry for so long? Give 'em the few quid and let them make some new content for me, the most important person with the best taste (I'm not from or in your UK but that's neither here nor there)

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's a fuggin dizz grace. If they have all this spare money in the radio budgets, why has BBC4 been hung out to dry for so long? Give 'em the few quid and let them make some new content for me, the most important person with the best taste (I'm not from or in your UK but that's neither here nor there)

BBC4 is in intentional managed decline. They keep wanting to kill it, but there's enough resistance that they 'compromise' by marginalising it to the point nobody will care when they try again in a few years.

[idunnosomename]

This week they're cìrclejerking over the pips. Makes a change to some newspaper columnist opining how the shipping forecast is like a poem.

[lauraxsynthesis]

The function of the R3 spin off will be fucked if still interrupted by news updates on whatever evil shit PM Starmer is up to.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Radio 3 pissed on its chips when they cut back Late Junction as far as I am concerned.

[Famous Mortimer]

And axing Mixing It, but not letting the hosts acknowledge that fact on air during their last show.

[idunnosomename]

not listened to Radio 3 for a couple of years but it seems alright since Roger Wright tried to Classic FM it up nearly a decade ago now. although I see they got a new controller last year. I ought to put it on more often because Radio 4 is almost totally complete shit these days. If I can't sleep at 7 AM I usually put World Service on instead because it's less shit (although I did have Radio 4 on this morning in bed, and Paul Gambaccini was banging on about how he was kept up in his Kennington house by foxes fucking. if that isnt radio 4 in a nutshell)

[shiftwork2]

The function of the R3 spin off will be fucked if still interrupted by news updates

It's time to do away with whatever edict or licence condition makes a music station morph into a news station on the hour.  It reflects life from 20 years ago and it harshes my vibe.  Who is it I need to petition, the Civil Aviation Authority or the IBA?

[lazyhour]

Even though I worked at Radio 4 Extra for years I never actually figured out why they were seemingly the only BBC radio station that didn't have to have news bulletins. But if they can go without them, perhaps any station can?

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's time to do away with whatever edict or licence condition makes a music station morph into a news station on the hour.  It reflects life from 20 years ago and it harshes my vibe.  Who is it I need to petition, the Civil Aviation Authority or the IBA?

I don't think they have to, Rinse FM doesn't.

[FeederFan500]

It might be that Radio 4 Extra isn't considered 'proper' radio, for example 5 Live Sports Extra doesn't have news interrupting it's live coverage either.

I think FM stations do have to have news bulletins as part of their license, it's one of those things that gets mooted as potential armageddon should it be dropped because plebs won't know what's going on if there isn't radio news. That's one reason I listen on catchup, to skip the news section, along with songs I don't like. Sometimes I forget and wonder why there's yet another devastating hurricane or something.

I wonder if the 'Sounds of the ...' shows get good listener ratings or something if they want decade based shows.

[idunnosomename]

R3 doesn't have bulletins every hour, they can play all of Mahler's 3rd without a break or any opera, they just have them in the morning to compete with Classic FM, surely?

[fuzzyste]

Well thats your Steve Wright out