Image – Getty: VV Shots
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
See also:
New Research on Audiobook Circulation in US Libraries
AI-Voiced Audiobooks: Guidance for Consumer Labeling
AAP’s October StatShot: Digital Audio Accounts for 15 Percent of Adult Book Sales
‘Reconsider This Damaging Decision’
With a gathering intensity that may have surprised some observers, staffers in the offices of BBC director-general Tim Davie are getting an earful of protests over planned cuts to audio drama on BBC Radio 3.
It’s being reported in several of the United Kingdom’s news media that at the end of 2024, the Society of Authors, Equity, and the Writers Guild of Great Britain were “confidentially informed” that the national network would be cutting all drama programming on BBC Radio 3, supposedly amid a rebranding of Radio 3 as being more heavily focused on its classical music shows such as Essential Classics, Night Tracks, Through the Night, and Breakfast.
As published today (January 15), Equity’s discussion of the situation reports that in its letter to those three unions, “the BBC acknowledged that BBC Radio 3 is a place for fostering new writing and acting talent. There are around 20 commissions of drama per year, of which half are new writing and adaptations, providing key opportunities for creative talent like actors, audio artists, and writers alongside the production teams that make these works.”
And if there’s anything that many in the UK enjoy more than audio drama (once called “radio drama”), it’s a good campaign.
By Tuesday evening (January 14), Alex Farber at The Times was writing, “For almost 60 years, BBC Radio 3 has played host to dramas featuring household names such as Christopher Eccleston, Toby Jones, David Suchet, and Maxine Peake. … From April, however, the curtain is to fall on the station’s sole scripted slot, causing dismay among a group of more than 200 writers, producers, and actors—who have warned that the decision will ‘devastate’ audio drama.”
Matthew Hemley at The Stage today has highlighted writers Alan Bennett; Caryl Churchill; David Greig; and Lolita Chakrabarti as some of the best-known luminaries in audio-drama writing.
And Anita Singh, arts and entertainment editor at The Telegraph, reminded readers that Radio 3’s controller said in 2023 that people seem to listen to Radio 3 more for music than for other programming.
“A BBC spokesman.” she wrote, said. “‘Given the significant financial pressures, we have to make tough decisions in every area of the BBC. As a result, we are sharpening the focus of Radio 3 as a classical music network, investing its stretched budgets in music content, both speech and performance.
“’The BBC will continue to be the biggest original audio drama commissioner in the UK. We are looking at ways to increase the number of longer plays to maintain the range of creative opportunities within our audio drama offer, and we have recently increased production budgets for the genre by 10 percent.”
And while that commentary from the network might to some sound encouraging, the unions are not impressed. On January 10, they opened a petition at Change.org: “Save Audio Drama at the BBC”, which today carries 2,211 signatures. (Update on January 17: 4,182 signatures.)
The Audiobook Question
Image – Getty: Mirel Kipioro
Some of our readers may wonder where audiobooks fit into all this. Is it possible that the bounding growth of the sector in the book publishing industry has offered new options for audio?—especially this might seem logical in some of the more theatrically adapted audiobook productions.
As it turns out, the petitioners tend to see audiobooks as something of a threat.
At one point in a lengthy letter to Davie at BBC, the unions’ petition refers to the major Amazon-owned audiobook distributor and producer, Audible, italics ours:
“BBC Radio 3 audio drama fuels the eco-system of British drama, and the removal of these opportunities will be a devastating loss for writers and actors alike.
“Combined with the sense that slots are diminishing on Radio 4, the complete loss of Radio 3 drama is catastrophic.
“The only beneficiary of these cuts are large commercial US platforms such as Audible, allowing them to keep rates low and ignore the high contractual standards set by the BBC which are often used as a benchmark within the wider audio drama industry.
“It also seems like a huge missed opportunity with new writing and audio commissions from BBC Radio 3 providing content for podcasts and content for BBC Sounds, keeping the BBC current and moving with the tide of how people are consuming audio.”
While signatures appearing on the petition haven’t arrived in a stampede, the issue seems only now to be picking up speed among news outlets, and may well prompt more supporters to speak up. Whether Radio 3 will make a change in plans remains to be seen, but the actors and writers are putting out the call.
At the Society of Authors today, Jasmine Scott‘s article throws that 12.500-member union’s weight behind the effort to stare down Radio 3, writing, “The BBC’s royal charter states that its priority is ‘to show the most creative, highest quality and distinctive output and services, including taking creative risks to develop fresh approaches and innovative content.’
“We believe that moving away from original scripted audio drama goes against this statement. …
“We urge the BBC to reconsider this damaging decision and would like to seek some concrete commitments as to how many hours of scripted audio drama will be commissioned going forward across BBC radio channels and audio platforms.”
More from Publishing Perspectives on audio and audiobooks is here, more on the Society of Authors is here, more on the Writers Guild of Great Britain is here, and more on the United Kingdom’s book market is here.