[BC] Classical stations...

[Rich Wood]

------ At 12:23 PM 12/29/2005, Burt I. Weiner wrote: -------

>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.

Most of the people I know who subscribe to satellite services (of all 
ages) tell me they did it for Classical and Jazz programming. Most of 
their markets have Howard Stern-type programming, but no Classical. 
Most of them have a wider range of musical taste than we give them 
credit for. If you want sex and violence in music, Opera outdoes Hip 
Hop by miles. People are slaughtered much more creatively in Opera 
than mere gunshots.

Classical is very viable, I believe. It's just much, much harder to 
sell by people who want to be order takers. Maybe Boston isn't 
representative (I don't think so) but Michael Tilson Thomas' weekly 
Contemporary Spectrum concerts with the Boston Symphony always had 
large numbers of young people. I produced Concerts from the New 
England Conservatory at WGBH, Boston. Lots of jeans and T-Shirts. 
While many were music students, most were not. WCRB, Boston, has held 
its own for years, enough to put another Classical station on the air 
on Cape Cod, WFCC. It's on the chopping block, now. I don't know if 
the trust that owned it will require the new owner to keep the format.

If there were no audience, how would Harvard's WHRB "Orgies" have 
lasted so many decades. No sex, please, we're Bostonians. The orgies 
are usually held during exams and feature a composer for a day. KFSD, 
San Diego, had one of the largest Classical audiences in the country 
in Southern California where the only culture is supposed to be in 
the yogurt. It had a huge signal which means it was sold and the 
format changed to the 87th rock format in the city. Dallas is 
supposed to be far less cultured, yet WRR-FM held its own very well. 
Any talk of changing the format or selling the station raised an 
uproar. When I lived there there was a thriving arts community. I 
have no reason to believe it's disappeared.

The two biggest disappointments were WTMI, Miami, and WCLV, 
Cleveland. Neither could resist the money they were offered to sell. 
WNYC, New York, was saved when the city sold it to a community group 
created for that purpose, over the protests of other companies 
willing to pay more but change the format.

I was very disappointed when Starr Broadcasting changed the format of 
WNCN, New York, for a short time. I remember talking with William F. 
Buckley, a major shareholder, who opposed it. Starr also owned TM 
Programming/Productions and Buckley would visit. It went back to 
Classical after an uproar and went on to beat the WQXR combo.

The biggest threat to Classical formats is Wall Street. If you can 
make more money, even in the short term, you're supposed to do it.

Rich

Rich Wood
Rich Wood Multimedia
Phone: 413-303-9084
FAX: 413-480-0010