Roger Wright, the controller of Radio 3, could be considered the public service conscience of the BBC. Unashamedly specialist and serious — where else will you hear, Wright argues, “forty-plus Handel operas and all 104 Hayden symphonies in a year” — Radio 3 is, perhaps, the ultimate justification for the licence fee. With an audience whose average age is 57, and a commercial rival, Classic FM, that is listened to 2 times as much, it can't be accused of trampling on the commercial sector. “What we try to do is offer a tone and style that feels quietly authoritative, that doesn't matter how old you are,” he says.

Wright, who has been in the job for just over ten years, reckons he could, if he really wanted, boost Radio 3's audience quickly — “just drop our commitment to new work, Stockhausen or Birtwistle, but that range is really important”. Yet, notwithstanding the more modest audience and almost lackadaisical attitude to wooing a new audience, there are signs that Radio 3 is a winner in the credit crunch, as part of a broader, and gradual classical, revival that stretches from Katherine Jenkins to far corners of the BBC.

Radio 3's audience of nearly two million a week is up 10 per cent in the past year. As Mr Wright adds, “there have been record attendances at the Proms”, all of which were broadcast on the station last year, and all but one of which he attended last year, excusing the gap “on a lunchtime meeting”.

Of course, there was some populism — a Doctor Who Prom, no less, “but that was just one of 76” — but the classical revival is broader than that, Mr Wright believes. “It's also become hard to get tickets to the Wigmore Hall [in London]; we're seeing a return of the recital — and look at the excitement around the Simón Bolívar Orchestra.” All of which suggests it is a good time for serious classical music, a point recognised this month when Radio 3 was named station of the year at the Sony Radio Awards.

Organising every Prom and the rest of the schedule, though, comes at a price — £37.4 million — a bill that is higher than Radio 1's £31.5 million and not much lower than the £39.5 million spent by Radio 2. Whether this is good value for the licence fee payer is another question, as the two other stations are far more popular. However, the Roger Wright defence is that “57 per cent of our music is from live performances, special recordings, concerts and operas”.

Radio 3 supports five orchestras and directly or indirectly employs “over 400 musicians — one in 50 of BBC employees are musicians”. The players, he adds, amount to “28 per cent of our cost and 7 per cent of the output”. Mutter something uncharitable — such as, is it really necessary for the BBC to employ five orchestras? — and Mr Wright asks, “Which one would you like me to get rid of? If those orchestras were not doing distinctive work throughout the UK, you could say get rid of them. But they are the cornerstone of the Proms.”

Yet while classical thrives on Radio 3, the station also carries some jazz, a task it confusingly shares with Radio 2. If classical is well served by the corporation, jazz is not, unless listeners are determined to use the internet, while commercial stations have struggled. Do not expect too much clarity in future, though — Mr Wright says the BBC won't have a dedicated jazz station. “How many radio stations do you want the BBC to have?”

A classical music lifer, with stints at Deutsche Grammophon and the Cleveland Orchestra as well as work at the BBC, Mr Wright says that one of his memories of being a teenager was “listening to Radio 3 in the bath”, and recommends “running the bath a few minutes before 11 [pm]” so you can catch The Essay, which discusses various high-minded cultural topics for a quarter of an hour. It is hardly the most obviously popular bit of programming to be proud of, but clearly it is part of a formula that, if audience figures are anything to go by, works.

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