Classic FM

I suspect that Classic FM have bought the rights to play repeatedly without further charge three or four records, for example, Eine Kleine, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons ... and play bits of them repeatedly. Certainly there are other offerings as well, but too often sections of the favoured few get repeated.

Well, I am now going to give up Classic FM (except for listening in the car). If I could have interent in the car I would give up on that too. Reasons:

I am sick of the endless programme trailers in between music. The chances of actually hearing music playing when you switch on are about one in three. If I want to listen to some music at 9am the following day I am sufficiently intelligent to tune in, I dont need to be told endlessly. And the presenters add practically no value. For example I had to listen to K Dereham gabbling away one afternoon (in between reading the text from the CD box) explaining how a harpsichord works and then (with a little snigger) telling us that we were now going to hear some version of the Brandenburg concertos with a PIANO instead of a harpsichord. Great. What is she getting paid for?

Then we come to MyClassic FM. What a disaster. I have twice made technical help requests and have been fobbed off a few days later with emails from some Customer Service helper saying the problem has been fixed, when it hasn't. It just doesn't work. eg after a while a popup appears saying "Do you want to continue listening?" which didn't work - I had to leave browser altogether and start again. (this isn't my setup causing the problem - I have tried it in more than one pc/laptop) Then of course the playlist is repetitive after half an hour. And the name of the track doesn't even display while playing. And so on.

Then we come to the awful quality of the advertsiements. I am totally sick of hearing about BG Bloomer's ambulance-chasing services, AAH Endowment policies, the BT ads which involve some poor IT person getting shouted at (this at 0600) and worst of all the ads for Maureen directory enquires.

It's just a mess.

I have found Otto128 Baroque on the net and it's superb. It plays in Windows Media Player (which is far far superior to the terrible software used for My Classic FM, and has an ad once in a while which is a small price to pay. Actually I haven't heard the same ad twice as yet.

Visit www.1.fm and see how it should be done.

Lastly the music on classic FM is getting worse. We rarely get to hear to hear a complete work - its always second movements. The Top 20 format is so tired I switch off now. As for music from the movies. Well, that is bad enough but I have to listen to Simon Bates recounting some boring film story for five minutes in between some music that has been forgotten for years and should remain so.

Lastly, the constant plugging of their ghastly CD collections. Alongside the endless "program flogging" it just irritates. And stuff on Naxos is so much better. And cheaper.

ClassicFM did some Customer Survey a year or two back and things got better for a bit. Now it has all gone downhill again.

A pity. What could have been a great radio station has been ruined with poor charisma-donating presenters, a muddled and incoherent musical product offering, far too much chat, far too much advert repetition, desperately poor software on the MyClassicFM channel and its all generally now second-rate rubbish.