Roger Tomlinson: Measuring An Audience? But What Are You Measuring?

“I have been a champion of audience data for a long time. I conducted my first year-long audience survey at the Vic in Stoke on Trent in 1969, supervised by Keele University. I have been commissioning research surveys for over 40 years and the Arts Council published my book ‘Boxing Clever’ on turning data into audiences in 1993… So, I ought to be welcoming the concept of quality metrics and what Culture Counts proposes to deliver for Arts Council England… But I am left with a lot of uneasy questions, mostly methodological.”

The Great Violin Collector Of Seattle

“Over the years he has owned eight Strads, eight del Gesùs, and 14 other instruments (violins, violas and cellos) with names such as Bergonzi, Guadagnini, Amati, Rugeri, Montagnana and Testore. His bow collection included 17 Tourtes, 14 Pecattes and seven others, most collected with the help of bow experts Paul Childs and Charles Beare.”

Claim: Boston Theatre Critics Reward Unadventurous Most Popular While Art (And Artists) Suffer

“Technological change, along with its radical re-structuring of the American economy, is decimating the business of culture and throttling artists, particularly those just starting out. Jonathan Taplin’s excellent new volume Move Fast and Break Things: How Facebook, Google, and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy explores the ways that the mind-boggling concentration of power in the hands of internet monopolies is widening the gulf between the haves and the have-nots, especially those in the arts. The major players (stars, etc) benefit from centralized control of eyeballs. The big names are raking in bigger bucks than before, while those lower down on the food chain — artists and groups who decades ago were able to make a middle class living through their efforts — are getting less and less.”