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Radio 3 launches new classical podcast
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 3 November 2010
BBC Radio 3 is launching a new podcast around the specialist classical music chart it also broadcasts on air, a chart based on the sales of classical repertoire excluding film music and compilations. The new podcast is 25 minutes long and will feature five or six tracks from the chart each week, with any one track allowed to run for up to nine minutes.
The aim of the podcast is to boost public interest in the classical genre. The last time Radio 3 did a big free download project – around a Beethoven season – it proved hugely popular with listeners, but less so with the music industry which feared that if the Beeb was to just give away classical recordings from its archives it would have a negative impact on the classical industry.
But the new venture is supported by record label trade body the BPI, which sees it as a way of promoting all things classical without directly competing with download sales – the podcast will only be available as a whole and not as its constituent tracks.
Radio 3 boss man Roger Wright told the Guardian: “The main thing that the BBC Trust wanted to be certain of [before giving the podcast the go ahead] was that this had the [music] industry’s support. This is something the market particularly wants – they recognise there could be a very positive outcome for this in terms of stimulating interest in classical music”.
While labels are supporting the new podcast, it will likely still have its critics – or at least one critic – Classic FM, which doesn’t like it whenever Radio 3 does something deemed to be slightly mainstream. But Wright says that, while there will sometimes be crossover between Radio 3 and Classic FM’s musical choices, the two remain very different complementary services.
