iPods and old lace

Like latter-day King Lears, wandering bemused across a digital landscape and blind to innovation - that must be how large swathes of the media regard people over the age of 50. They appear to associate middle-age with listening to BBC Radio 3 and struggling to use a video recorder.

At least, that would explain all the eyebrows that have been raised over a new survey that "reveals" that fans of classical music are not, after all, a bunch of decrepit technophobes. It shows that people aged over 50 actually own iPods and download music!

The survey, commissioned by Gramophone magazine, suggests that 75 per cent of classical buffs have used a computer, MP3 player, or digital radio to listen to music. Another finding that apparently has analysts on the edge of their seats is that classical music appeals to younger listeners too.

If older people are luddites with lumbago, then the flip side of the cliché is that young people tap their feet to a hip hop beat while toying with the latest digital devices.

The Gramophone survey comes as the BBC's Third Programme crosses the Rubicon into the age of blue rinses and free bus passes. The Third Programme began broadcasting classical music, along with some world music and jazz, 60 years ago, on 29th September 1946.

At this point, it is probably worth remembering that nearly one-and-a-half million people downloaded Beethoven's symphonies last year, when Radio 3 made them available on its website.

However, Radio 3 has many critics, who appear keen to spoil its birthday party. The station is dismissed by some as 'intimidating", "elitist" and "stuffy".

Others have accused Radio 3 of "dumbing down" and filling the airwaves with pop music and quizzes, as it tries to attract a younger audience. You can't win them all, as Mozart probably said when they accused him of "dumbing down" by composing a German-language opera about a magic flute.

I digress.

One hundred and fifteen years after Mozart penned Die Zauberflöte and 60 years before Radio 3 was born, Reginald Fessenden broadcast the first-ever radio programme. The historic broadcast, on 24th December 1906, included violin music and a reading from the Bible.

In Italy, Tivoli Radio Watch has carried out a survey to mark the 100th anniversary of the event. The study suggests that Italians feel more attached to the radio than any other medium because of the emotions it inspires.

I have written before about the renaissance of Italian radio in recent years. Talented broadcasters like Fiorello are attracting new audiences, while the latest technologies are increasing people's choices about when, where and how they listen.

The same is true across Europe. It is not about demographics, young and old are responding as broadcasters find new ways of engaging them: when Danish Radio made Mozart's symphonies available for download, hundreds of thousands of people responded.

As baby boomers reach retirement age, it is about time the media realised that pigeonholes are for, well, pigeons. The over-50s are the rock 'n' roll generation, who grew up listening to Elvis, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, as well as Brahms, Liszt and Schubert.

Comments

[Phil]

This is true, the last of the truly legendary bands (ie, the Floyd, the Stones, The Beatles, The Who), are all approaching or past pension age. When's someone gonna come along to replace them as legends? Westlife and Take That? I don't think so.

Phil
www.fab4beatles.co.uk