It’s a good way to force a bit of sampling on your listeners – so it might help grow your hours by flagging up some of the more specialist shows.

It’s a nice idea to introduce people to presenters they wouldn’t normally hear. Radio 1 have done similar on bank holidays in the past I think.

It’s not a bank holiday though – just a random Wednesday in the middle of a month. Won’t this just unsettle audiences?

it does seem an odd choice of day to do it – i was always lead to believe audiences like familiarity in the morning

My nan is about the most consistent listener to Radio 2 – it’s on in the kitchen all day every day. Bank holidays may be the only time she doesn’t listen, so perhaps they’re deliberately targeting the everyday listener, rather than trying to drag in a temporary crowd for one day only.

When I first read about this, I kind of scratched my head a bit. Then, I thought about it and although it appears to be a daft idea, in fact it could prove useful to the daytime audienmce who have no idea of what happens after 1900. I am not sure if the one hour slots, with two presenters is such a good thing though and anyone ‘dipping in’ might think its a charity thing, like CIN or Red Nose Day or something like that.

I will propose the very same thing to Heart tomorrow. I might just get a lie in for once!

I think it’s a good idea to get people to sample different dayparts, without any effort.

I’m all for trying something new.

Lets face it, with the figures R2 has, they can afford to experiment a bit.

An excellent idea. BBC Radio 2 is simply head and shoulders above all radio stations for its depth and breadth. Hopefully it will lead to continued success for the Corporation’s top station.

Confuse listeners? I don’t think so – I suspect this’ll be branded in such away that it’ll be clear to anyone listening long enough that it’s a extra-ordinary broadcast. Undoubtedly it’ll not please everyone and they’ll see people tune elsewhere on the day but I reckon they’ll be back pretty quickly.

As a public service broadcaster you could almost argue that it’s their duty to do things like this and bring an appreciation of less ‘daytime-friendly’ music to the masses.

Call me cynical, but isn’t this a jolly good way to justify R2’s existence and more specifically it’s use of public money?

And they don’t have to worry about figures. They’re not chasing advertising revenue. They get money whatever. Interesting experiment… and I guess most commecial broadcasters are happy to let them (the publicly funded) take the risks these days.

And why would that be cynical? Or is justification of a popular service a crime these days?

Cynical because there’s obviously a feeling that certain parts of the BBC are under threat at the moment now there’s a cut-happy, generally Conservative, Government in charge.

It’ll be a good tester to see if easy listening music can work during daytime hours again since the Frances Line era.

Only two good hours as far as I can see 11AM-12 & 4PM – 5PM. No thanks Radio2, just bring us some decent presenters on the main line shows. Thank goodness for Ken Bruce!

TERRIBLE! working at home and day ruined by this drivel! There’s a reason why I don’t listen to Radio 2 at weekends and evenings and this is it! PLEASE don’t do this again!

I thought it was a bit ropey at the start but by the time I got home from work things were sounding a lot better. It was interesting to note that I thought the Jooles Holland live show sounded much better on DAB than FM. DAB seemed pucnhier with a more natural high frequency response. Don’t know why. It’s only my ears and a fairly expensive Hi Fi.

Ah but highly trained ears Andy

DAB has significantly less audio processing on it than FM. (The same goes for iPlayer, which, at 128kbps AAC, would have been the ‘cleanest’ sound available from the station). The sound I heard was worse: but there again, I was in the Radio Theatre.

Do we want to go back to Frances Line though?

To be fair James, R2 has slanted towards a more mainstream pop product during the daytime playlisted shows since the Jim Moir era. I’m not saying that it should be a ‘Primetime/Saga’ product, but a broader mix of tracks including crossover easy listening tracks would at least make it more of a distinctive sound during daytime than it is now.

And that appears to be working. Must admit though, going back to the Line era would be great for the commercial sector!

That was my thinking too. It makes it harder for the smaller groups when R2 does something similar with well known personalities.

This is very true, Martin. Commercial radio did very well between Bannister’s revamp on 1 and Moir’s on 2, and it’s probably this boom-period of the Mid-to-Late 90’s why a lot of licenses got awarded which in 2011 appear not to be very, if at all, viable. The BBC really lost out by not changing 2 at the same time as 1. Whilst I’m a massive admirer of the work Jim Moir did to R2, it hasn’t done Commercial Radio any favours. We may go through this again when Andy Parfitt moves on from R1, as I predict there’ll be a few changes when the baton changes there.

Though I’ve had this radio for (10) years I’ve hardly ever listened to the DAB as the FM stage is so good. You’d think 128k MP2 may have some discernable artefacts if you listen closely enough. I could hear none and prefered the sound on DAB. Maybe it was down to the programme material that, due to it’s live nature may have disagreed with the FM processing. You hear so many people slag off DAB for poor sound quality so I thought I’d redress the balance based on my experience.

Well lets face it Radio 2 is the only station that I have heard that still does radio the way it should be done. Happy networking all you commercial jocks, last one out turn of the lights lol