From today's Times in London.

   Dramatic change as Radio 3 goes back upmarket
   BY ADAM SHERWIN

   A COMMITMENT to drama will be the key factor in a revamp of the Radio
   3 schedules, the network's new Controller announced yesterday.

   Roger Wright, who took over as Controller three months ago, promised
   to broadcast the best of British drama, when he unveiled his first
   programme schedules, and said that there would be more broadcasts of
   live music and of recorded performances.

   By concentrating on drama and live music, Mr Wright hopes to
   differentiate Radio 3 from Classic FM.  "Live broadcasts are so
   much more interesting than simply playing CDs," said Mr Wright.

   After complaints from established Radio 3 listeners that the station
   was being "dumbed down" in a search for new audiences, Mr Wright has
   introduced changes that have largely confirmed his reputation as a
   "highbrow".

   The offerings include a new production of Strindberg's The Father
   and Howard Barker's House of Correction with Juliet Stevenson.  Mr
   Wright said:  "I want to draw more attention to the long-form drama
   and new writing that we broadcast."

   The tenth anniversary of Samuel Beckett's death will be marked by
   a week of programmes; and a weekend marking the 250th anniversary
   of Goethe's birth, and a Pushkin night, are also scheduled.  "The
   percentage of speech in relation to music will probably go up across
   the network," said Mr Wright.

   After listeners had expressed unhappiness about the changes to the
   morning schedule introduced by Mr Wright's predecessor, from August
   music performances will be broadcast between 11.30am and 1pm every
   weekday, replacing Artist of the Week and Sound Stories.  Composer
   of the Week will return to the 9am slot from which it had
   controversially been shifted to noon.

   "That will bring joy to some quarters, who said Composer Of The Week
   should never have moved," he observed, "but I will get letters from
   some people who say:  'I can no longer have my lunch to Composer Of
   The Week.' Such are the problems of a Radio 3 Controller."

   Night Waves, the Radio 3 arts discussion and review programme, will
   be extended to four nights a week.

   Mr Wright is particularly pleased to be broadcasting WOMAD, the July
   festival of world music and dance in Reading.  "I want people to hear
   more world music.  We would have covered the whole thing live but
   there is this thing called the Proms at the same time," he said.

   Jocelyn Hay, chairman of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer group,
   who had accused BBC Radio of going downmarket, welcomed Mr Wright's
   schedule.  "This sounds like a raising of standards and it makes a
   welcome departure.  The change of emphasis is exciting."

   Classic FM has 5.2 million listeners a week compared with Radio 3's
   2.5 million, recent figures show.  Listening figures to be released
   by tomorrow are expected to show increases for both Radio 3 and
   Classic FM.  A spokesman for Radio 3 added:  "High culture is at the
   core of our broadcasting.  We are not competing at all with Classic
   FM."

John G. Deacon
Home page:         http://www.ctv.es/USERS/j.deacon