Radio 4 loses listeners, but is Radio 3 losing the plot?

HAS SOMEONE at BBC News online got it in for John Humphrys (above), Evan Davies and their Radio 4 colleagues? Or are they merely a convenient foil as the BBC tries to conceal its difficulties at Radio 3, where a recent shake-up appears to have flopped?
 
The BBC website has headlined its item on the latest RAJAR audience figures: 'BBC Radio 4 audience falls from record listenership'.

The report goes on to say Radio 4 has seen its audience "dwindle" by 300,000 listeners in the last three months, its weekly audience falling from 10.8m to 10.5m.

As for the "flagship news programme" Today, it saw (or heard?) its listenership slipping from 7.1 to 6.7 million across the last quarter.

All of which is true, and presumably of some concern to the Radio 4 controller, Gwyneth Williams, even if the network's audience is actually up 200,000 year-on-year.

But what is perplexing about the BBC News report – and will doubtless be the subject of discussion on the next Radio 4 Feedback programme - is what it has to say about the RAJAR figures for Radio 3, the classical music channel.

Here it is, in full: "Classical station Radio 3 maintained a listenership of above two million in the new figures."
 
Good news, then, for the disc-spinners at Radio 3. Except... Let's turn to The Guardian and its report on the RAJAR figures.

Radio 3 "traditionally enjoys a surge in summer listening on the back of the Proms", the paper reports. But the sad truth is that Radio 3 "lost more listeners than any other BBC national radio station in the three months to 18 September".

Its average of 2.05m weekly listeners across the quarter was down 5.6 per cent on the previous three months (exactly double Radio 4’s drop of 2.8 per cent) and down 4.3 per cent year-on-year.

The slippage follows controversial changes to the Radio 3 schedule in a bid to broaden its appeal. New items include a morning show Essential Classics and listener requests on the breakfast programme. Radio 3 purists have not been afraid to show their disgust, describing the changes as "cultural vandalism" as the Daily Mail reported last month.

As The Guardian puts it, "Radio 3 controller Roger Wright will be hoping it is a blip and not a trend".

Certainly Wright has a lot more to worry about than his counterpart at Radio 4, however BBC News might choose to see it. ·