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Radio 3 announces plans to move at least 50% of programme making to Salford
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 7 December 2022
The BBC has announced that production for eight programmes that air on Radio 3 will relocate to Salford over the next two years, part of wider efforts by the broadcaster to better spread its operations around the country and become less London-centric.
Shifting Radio 3 programmes in particular is part of a specific plan to “create a UK-wide classical music hub in the North, maximising new partnerships and opportunities, reaching out to new audiences and diversifying voices heard on the station”. Fun stuff!
The programmes moving up north for some radio making good times include ‘Music Matters’, ‘Jazz Record Requests’, ‘Essential Classics’, ‘Through The Night’ and ‘Sunday Breakfast’. The programmes ‘The Listening Service’ and ‘Afternoon Concert’ are both already partly made out of the BBC’s north west base, but will eventually move all their production there. And ‘Words And Music’ will also increase its Salford production.
“As a result”, the Beeb said yesterday, “by 2024/25 at least 50% of production hours for BBC Radio 3 will be from Salford. In addition to this Radio 3 move, Simon Webb – recently announced as the BBC’s first Head of Orchestras And Choirs – will be based there from January 2023, and the incoming new Controller of Radio 3 and BBC Proms, to be announced, will spend their time across both London and Salford bases”.
Current Radio 3 Controller Alan Davey adds: “Strengthening Radio 3’s roots in the north of England, with a continued and important presence in London, will ensure the station holds its place at the forefront of leading and developing classical music and culture for the whole of the country. We hope to support and develop a wider pool of established and emerging talent, and build new partnerships with different communities in the north as well as with the wider classical music industry”.
