[BC] Classical stations...

[Burt I. Weiner]

I've been around classical music and classical music broadcasting all 
of my life.  I was introduced to opera by way of a wind-up Victrola, 
probably at the age of four.  I can assure you that there (still) is 
a huge audience for classical music.  I believe one of the main 
reasons that there are few classical music stations is that a sales 
department that knows who it's audience is, is very rare.  They rely 
on rating services to tell them who's listening.  Most sales peoples 
are order takers, not really salespeople who know their product.  I 
have never met a classical music fan that has ever been asked to fill 
out a diary or ever been called on the phone and asked.

I was chief engineer for KFAC and KFAC-FM in Los Angeles.  The 
station always had poor ratings and not a lot of inventory.  In a 
change of ownership the new GM said, "They want a classical music 
station, we'll give 'em a classical music station".  He went on to 
put together a sales department that built it's own documentable 
demographics and became very successful in spite of little or no 
ratings.  As they say, they laughed all the way to the bank.  KFAC 
finally went away because through ownership changes the knowledge of 
how to sell the station was lost.

Not to long ago i was having a discussion with the owner of a local 
classical station who believed that the audience for classical music 
was old and dying off.  I challenged him to go to the Hollywood Bowl 
on any classical night and see just how full the seats are and just 
what the median age is.

When my son was about 13 or so, he was home alone working at his 
bench in the garage putting together a model plane.  I came home 
earlier than normal only to discover that he was listening to Carl 
Princi's "World of Opera" on KFAC.  Most of my horse-riding buddies 
are classical music fans.

If you want to tell me that things have changed, go ahead.  I'll tell 
you to go sit at the Hollywood Bowl on a classical night and look around.

Burt

At 10:41 PM 12/28/2005, you wrote:
> > I've been in Classical music radio on and off since I was a teen. I've
> > seen
> > them (Classical stations) go dark and it saddens me. I have my own
> > opinion
> > as to why this has been going on over the last several years. (Dumbing
> > Down
> > of America and lack/elimination of good music programs in schools but
> > that's
> > as political as I'll get in this forum). Fortunately, only one went down
> > when was I under its employ. KYTE in Portland. Now it has no Classical
> > station as do so many other cities.

Burt I. Weiner Associates
Broadcast Technical Services
Glendale, California  U.S.A.
biwa at earthlink.net
K6OQK