Kate Chisholm

Chance would be a fine thing | 29 December 2016

The good news is the BBC World Service has announced a huge new expansion of the network

issue 31 December 2016

It’s been a turbulent year, and not just in the outside world. Inside radio, digital is changing not just when and how we listen but content, too. Classic FM overturned its daily schedule in the run-up to Christmas to stage an all-Mozart day with nothing but the virtuoso’s works for 24 hours. It was a bold step by the commercial station, reliant on advertisers (and therefore listener figures) for its survival. How many non-Mozart-enthusiasts would be turned off by such a monothon? That Classic FM was prepared to take the risk suggests that the conventional division of the day into separate programmes, making sure there is something for everyone in a daily mixed bag, is becoming less important now that digital means we can go in search of something different whenever there’s something ‘live’ that does not appeal.

Earlier this year, Radio 3 (which back in 2011 devoted 12 days to nothing but Mozart) took the idea further by giving us River of Music, 12 hours of continuous music, hand-picked and sequenced as a single stream with not a word spoken to interrupt the flow.

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