Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> WS: "no more serendipity" http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1141210675 Message started by Forum Admin on Mar 1^st, 2006, 10:58am

Title: WS: "no more serendipity"
Post by Forum Admin on Mar 1^st, 2006, 10:58am

This is taken from this week's Private Eye:

MEDIA NEWS

As BBC1 prepares for the imminent return of "Jackanory", another series featuring literary readings by actors is quietly disappearing: this month will see the last edition of the World Service’s "Off the Shelf" which for more than a decade has featured great works of literature from around the globe abridged in 15-minute chunks and broadcast to around 40 million listeners.

The show — which at the time of writing is broadcasting J.M. Coetzee’s "Disgrace" read by Sir Derek Jacobi — will disappear from the schedules along with much of the station’s music programming and drama in April, as part of what commissioning editor Harriet Green terms the English Language World Service’s attempt to “rationalise” its programmes in favour of, yes, you’ve guessed it, rolling news.

“Instead of being a channel where it can be unpredictable what you will tune in and find — it might be a concert, it might be a news programme, it might be a religious affairs programme — we want to make it more predictable,” Green explained to outraged listeners on the World Service’s feedback programme "Write On "last week.

“All the information we have indicates that serendipity is not what people want. We have to ask, do they expect a reading, or do they expect something which is going to help them make sense of what’s happening in the world?”

That daily readings from literature might do just that is a possibility that does not seem to have crossed Green and her colleagues’ minds.