The idea I have in mind is to compare the situation on television today and thirty years ago of what persists in being known as classical music. I write as an academic, but this will not be a normal academic paper. For one thing, I shall not do any special research but base myself instead on memory and autobiographical experience, because thirty years ago, before becoming an academic, I began by writing music criticism and making documentaries on music for television. My intention is to say something as a participant observer about the alteration of the cultural context in which this thing called classical music operates, and about the part that television has played in this.