NewsBiscuit

Popular classical music station Classic Fm today issued a statement confirming that it had in fact ‘run out of music’ for its Hall of Fame Top 300, and had been forced to broadcast several pieces of music over and over again.

The Hall of Fame, which is based on a scientific poll of ‘the nation’s favourite music’ was found to consist of only four pieces of music, namely ‘the Brief Encounter music’, ‘the Hovis ad’, ‘that nice one by Mozart’, and ‘Tee-tum-tee-tiddly-pom, oh I can’t remember what it’s called. It might be Elgar.’

Minutes of a meeting show that the senior management of the radio station were torn between just playing the pieces identified by their research or artificially augmenting the list, but ended up just playing the same things they play every day, interspersed with jingles reminding listeners that they are listening to the Classic FM Hall of Fame between every single piece of music, or sometimes in the middle of one.

‘We lost that one from the Hamlet advert when the cigar adverts were banned and most people are too embarrassed to say ‘Just One Cornetto’, said DJ Simon Bates. ‘Then we had to discount all the confused people who voted for Bohemian Rhapsody or contestants from the X Factor. In the end we just played different bits of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and gave them titles from the Pizza Express menu.’

Classic FM has been in decline since its launch due the large number of listeners who keep dying. Analysts believe that this is not just down the old age of the radio station’s demographic, but also because the presenters speak so quietly and slowly that late night listeners in their car fall asleep and crash. Now the station may have to close unless anyone can come up with one more piece of classical music that any of their listeners have heard of. ‘We did try asking members of the public to name their favourite opera. But most people looked a bit puzzled, thought for a bit and then said ‘Winfrey’.

Posted: Sep 7th, 2010 by Zadok