Nick Perovich wrote:

>It would be interesting to see some research on this.  While it doesn't
>count as research, I can remember how amazed I was, when browsing through
>middlebrow magazines (e.g., TIME) from the 1950's: the amount of space
>devoted to covering classical music was astonishing.  There was clearly
>a period, and it was only half a century ago, when magazines for the
>general reader assumed that one of the areas said reader wanted to be
>kept abreast of was classical music.  It is hard for me to believe that
>the drastically diminished coverage classical music receives today in
>the same magazines does not result from a change in the interests and
>level of knowledge of the average educated reader.  Maybe things were
>always the same as today, but, if so, they were making some very peculiar
>editorial decisions half a century ago.

I wonder if there is a inverse correlation between listening to television
and listening to classical music? (As well as other things, such as
listening to general news magazines, a genre which never really existed
in the United Kingdom).

It would seem that the heyday of classical music was when radio was the
driving force (1930s and 1940s); certainly, in my opinion, it would seem
that those who promote classical music have never really understood a
more visual age and that has led to its present difficulties.

(For example, the television coverage of the BBC Proms has barely changed
from 20 or 25 years ago; there is only so much one can do with shots,
from various angles and in unchanged lighting, of orchestra players
dressed in black).

Alastair