Jim wrote:
Another commercial classical FM flips to noncom.

The classical format on commercial radio moved from "endangered species"
closer to "extinct" over the past year, when prominent standard-bearers WQXR
New York and WCRB Boston were sold to public broadcasters who converted them
to noncommercial operation. Another leading commercial classical voice, the
Lutheran Church-owned KFUO-FM in St. Louis, is embroiled in legal and
political battles stemming from church leaders' attempts to sell the big
class C0 signal to a religious broadcaster.

Well, here's the problem: it's the music.

We have here in Williamsburg, VA. a local commercial classical station that
opened up just a couple years ago, and which seems to be doing very well.
You can turn on WBQK any time and hear Pachelbel's Canon or Vivaldi's Four
Seasons. The thing is, there's only a limited number of times I can listen
to the Four Seasons without going off my nut. The playlist is as short as
a typical Oldies format station.

They advertise themselves as having "relaxing classical music," in such
a way that they seem to be positioning themselves in the market as a sort
of upscale easy listening station.

Now, from a profitability standpoint this might be effective, and it's
possible that it's the only way to keep classical music profitable over
the long term. But I think it doesn't do justice to the music at all.

For the most part, what is interesting about classical music is that it
isn't relaxing at all. Unlike easy listening music, it's music that you
are supposed to listen carefully to. Treating it as a utility product is
not promoting the music and it's not promoting the importance of the music.

two hands' worth of fingers to count the rest: Mapleton's KBOQ (103.9) in
Monterey, CA; foundation-owned KDB, Santa Barbara (93.7); American General
Media's KHFM, Santa Fe, NM (95.5); Judson Group's WCRI, Block Island, RI
(95.9); Ken Squier's WCVT, Stowe, VT (101.7); Sandab's WFCC (107.5) on Cape
Cod; Davis Media's WBQK (107.9) in the Norfolk, VA market; and three Nassau
"W-Bach" outlets on the Maine coast. By contrast, when the first edition of
the "M Street Radio Directory" (ancestor to The Radio Book) came out in
1989, it listed 32 commercial classical FMs and more than half a dozen
commercial classical AMs.

What's happening is that kids aren't listening to classical music, and I
think some of that is because kids aren't really listening to _any_ music,
they're just letting it pour into their ears twenty-four hours a day without
really paying attention to it. I blame the lack of music classes in schools
for some of this, but that's not all of it. It's a genuine cultural shift
and it's going to hit _all_ radio eventually.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."