“NEVER MISS A BEAT! THE PROMS! ON IPLAYER AND BBC SOUNDS!”
Through July, August and September, this promotional message was ubiquitous on BBC Television. But it was subtly misleading. Every one of this season’s 73 Proms from the Royal Albert Hall was indeed broadcast live on Radio 3, and can be heard again on BBC Sounds. But on the iPlayer, you will find just 26 of them.
Only one concert — the Last Night — was televised live. Another half dozen were recorded on the night and transmitted after a delay, allowing the interval to be excised. The others were recorded for later broadcast — days or weeks after the event, some even after the end of the season. Just six Proms featured on BBC One (part of the Last Night) or BBC Two. The rest turned up on BBC Four or CBeebies (which hosted two special concerts for children). Concerts can be a visual as well as an aural feast: but, year after year, BBC television declines to let us partake in full.
You might have thought that BBC Four — like Radio 3 — was tailor-made for broadcasting the Proms. Yet night after night its schedule was instead filled with old travelogues or even older sitcoms. In the age of streaming, the iPlayer is a perfectly acceptable place for overflow live content: Wimbledon is a case in point, but seemingly not the
