Few people enjoy paying taxes but I don’t mind buying a TV licence and a parking permit and would pay other taxes were they to be re-introduced; namely a wireless licence (abolished in 1971) and a dog licence (abolished in 1987). I don’t suppose either raised much revenue, a wireless licence cost £1 5s. in 1971 and a dog licence 37 new pence in 1987.
How much does the BBC spend on their radio stations? This is what it cost last year to deliver BBC radio to individual users in pence per user hour last year.
R3 is gratifyingly expensive because it only has about 1.7 million listeners (1.3% of the market), so I think I am getting a bargain. It often goes off piste to broadcast stuff no sane scheduler would contemplate. Last Friday, International Women’s Day, it was devoted to women composers. I did not tune in.
Today, the eve of the Oscars, it’s the turn of cinema and I am hooked. I sometimes listen to Sounds of Cinema on Saturday afternoon, actually on catch-up, but have been put off by music composed for computer games. It’s only just after brekker and already there has been some grand stuff. Who knew Marvin Hamlisch won three Academy Awards in the same year – an unbeaten record? Now I must watch The Way We Were, the film that won him awards for his score and title song, starring Barbara Streisand and Robert Redford – box office gold in 1973. His third AA was for adapting Scott Joplin’s rags for The Sting.
And R3 is on a roll; Composer of the Week is Ennio Morricone.