Sale of classical music radio station in Texas

[papeetepatrick]

This is upsetting news for the classical arts, but I don't find it too surprising.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/26/arts/mus...artner=homepage

[dazedandconfused]

Sadly, nor do I. Hopefully those that really want to can listen to WOR or the other classical station in Dallas.

[dirac]

Thank you for posting this, papeetepatrick. A very good article worth reading in full. (It's happening in Van Cliburn's neck of the woods, and he's speaking out about it.)

He said the college did not actively seek a buyer but was approached by a radio station broker.

Mr. Holda also pointed out that the station has a meager 650 members. "People want things, but they don't want to pay for them," he said. "It's not unique to the arts."

Supporters of the station see it differently. "It's a public trust," said Otis Carroll, a prominent Tyler lawyer and a leader of the group trying to save the station. He and others say the college kept the negotiations quiet until it was too late and made no attempt to ask for outside financing.

It used to be that public radio picked up the slack, but NPR has gone over almost completely to talk. I live in the Bay Area and can get only one classical station, and every year it gets harder and harder to find the Saturday Met broadcasts on the dial.

The rule in today’s radio and elsewhere seems to be that if everybody doesn’t want it, nobody gets it, especially as ‘everybody’ gets older. (It’s not limited to classical music, although that's where the problem is most acute. Today's 'classic rock' stations -- they used to be called oldies stations, but baby boomers are too phobic for the term -- don't go back further than the Sixties. You hear little or no Fifties rock and roll, and the Sixties playlist is notably limited.)