Ever since the news that WUFT at the University of Florida in Gainesville is switching from classical music to news/talk, Mike and Mona and I have been privately batting around a discussion about what classical stations need to do to survive and thrive. We thought you might want to join the discussion.
My opinion (always) is that a classical station is much more than a radio station. It is communication-central for your entire local arts community. The arts groups desperately need you, and you’re tied with them in a relationship where either everybody wins or you all lose.
And yet, as Mike points out, “I think it’s probably hopeless for someone like the dean at the U of F to look beyond the return on investment the university gets in operating the station and realize the larger implications of nurturing the arts community. It’s unfortunate, but I imagine most administrators at universities just don’t see that as their radio station’s job.”
Mike also reminded me of the article published recently in Current: “Funding you can nurture, from your community.” The article is about fundraising, but the conclusions are about community, which in my opinion is the only solution to what ails classical stations. According to the Development Exchange Inc., classical and jazz stations tend to underperform.
DEI has studied the mix of stations in the annual Benchmarks surveys to determine whether larger market size, higher revenue or specific formats or license types give some stations advantages over others when it comes to generating givers and dollars.
These aren’t big factors in fundraising potential — with two exceptions: classical and jazz stations’ performance. In membership/mid-level giving, even the classical and jazz stations that do best at earning net revenue have an average net revenue per listener-hour 22 percent below their peers’. On the underwriting side, the top-performing classical and jazz stations have net revenue per listener-hour 81 percent below their peers’.
Mike’s response? “That’s kind of mind-blowing. 81 percent off on underwriting? What is going on? Is news really that much more appealing to underwriters? If so, why? Is it just audience? Demographics? Actually I bet demographics could be a big part of it — advertisers aren’t as interested in reaching older listeners, and classical’s audience must skew older.”
Mona points out this quote from David Duff, President of the Association for Music Personnel in Public Radio (AMPPR) on the AMPPR listserv:
We spend more time discussing whether or not to give percentages in a weather forecast than we do discussing how we make the case in our communities and to our employers about the importance of what we do.
Mona brings up some important points: “If we believe what we do is worth it, what would we do to save it? There are partnerships in the community: classical music groups, presenters, churches, synagogues, local business, restaurants, galleries, theater companies, tourism bureaus, nursing homes, social and fraternal organizations (women’s clubs, scouts, Elks, Lions, business councils, knitting circles), libraries, museums, realtors, other student groups, local corporations, lawyers, bankers, doctors… If we mattered to all these people and they mattered to us, then it’s more than just a few letters that management always seems to dismiss as ‘oh, those few crazy old people who are upset no matter what we do’.
“I don’t think the answer is cutting the way to success. I was at some meeting about how arts can improve our economy, and when we were asked to answer the complaint ‘this project is too expensive,’ people mentioned lots of ways to cut costs. They laughed when my answer was ‘be worth it’.
“Public radio and classical music are part of the whole creative economy vision. It’s why I keep going to these groups that have borrrrrrrrring meetings all about mission statements (e.g., ‘The City of X is a vibrant growing community which celebrates its cultural diversity and multi-generational personality through the arts).”
What do you think? Can we fix this with creative solutions, or are there going to be more stations flipping from classical?
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First- Community. A Classical Music or Jazz PubRadio station must strive to create a community of interest with it listeners who will hopefully be or become members. All three of the stations to which I belong spend a great deal of time and probably some money on this.
WNYC on-air people have been responsive to the listeners since the snail mail days. When “New Sounds” made the Billboard Top Ten music events, and I asked John Schaefer for a copy, he got me a copy (why I could not get this for myself remains a mystery). When I asked David Garland about the pronunciation of Henryk Gorecki’s last name, he sent me a page from a book of Slavonic pronunciations. These digital days, there is a running weblog and Comments box utility for “New Sounds”, “Soundcheck” and “Evening Music”.
WBGO, Jazz 88 in Newark, NJ is promoting concerts at The Village Vanguard and J&R Music, sometimes with a videocast with a running IM utility. Very cool.
WPRB, Princeton, NJ, the on-air folk will take your phone calls during the program for comments. They will take requests.
Second- Programming. Music directors need to create focus by dedicating specific time to specific genres. KUSC, to which I belonged before wnyc2 came along, created a focus for newer music with Alan Chapman’s “Modern Masterpieces” Saturdays 10:00PM- midnight. Complain about the time slot? Sure. But, hey…
Also at WPRB, the station is totally volunteer, the on-air people decide what they will play, within the context of Classical Music weekdays 6:00AM-11:00AM, Jazz 11:00AM-1:00PM and Sunday mornings. There is an Opera program and a separate Broadway program. People get into these programs. They like to know that they can expect them regularly.
There is an unacknowledged interest in Early Music. It is way not my interest, but a two hour bloc once a week on a lot of stations would be great.
WCNY, a really good PubRadio outlet in Syracuse, NY is a classical station. But, every weekday evening, there was a bloc of time for Jazz with a knowledgeable on-air host to program it.
Programs like “Soundcheck”, with its daily round of guests, can be tough to do. But, in mid-sized and large markets, there are always artists coming through for performances. Listeners would like to hear them talk about their art. Nobody talks as fast as Steve Reich. No on is as funny as Osvaldo Golijov.
So, there is a lot that stations can do to be relevant. Maybe that is the big word: relevance.
Let me give you one listeners prospective.
I think you folks are dismissing the internet listener as a source of pledges and somehow assuming that some other stations across the country are already attracting a substantial group of internet listeners. If you give up on the local internet listener you do so at your own peril. When the internet stream is high quality, in most cases, it will sound better than analog on a modern AV receiver. Most hardware companies try to make analog tuners as cheap as the can given that they have found no interest among the users. Sound quality is not an issue in talk radio. The other issue with an internet stream is it must not go down every 45 minutes.
The price of the IC chip sets that allow for the addition of internet connectivity (wired or wireless) to a modern AV component is dropping fast and many products designed for use in an audio or audio-video system now have this capability built in. You will not find HD radio support in almost any of the component. The ability to stream audio and video from servers in the house is driving the hardware companies to include these ICs but internet radio tuners always come with internet enabled AV devices.
The internet listener is faced with the question of who do they support. What you need to do is give the listener a reason to support the local broadcaster. Spinning CDs is not going to do it. Other technology do that better. No I am not talking about satellite radio. Have you listened to a classical station on it? To get 100 channels they use low data rates to transmit the music. To hear how bad it is listen to Satellite on a good stereo setup or studio quality headphones. Another strike against satellite is information that can be supplied off the small screen is not really workable for classical.
Indoors satellite does not make sense at all since people are already paying for cable. Music Choice comes off the cable box at no cost for most cable subscribers. It is better annotated on the TV screen and it sounds better. I cannot figure out who would want to listen to Classical 24 or the Beethoven Satellite network over the air if they have access to Music Choice. You do not have to guess what is being played since it is on the screen all the time! Better yet Music Choice never has pledge weeks. In the car your competition is MP3 players.
So what should you be playing? Material that is not available on CDs. That includes material available from WFMT, WCLV, MPR and CD syndications. The best way to get people to attend live concerts is to have them hear them on the radio. These programs also do an excellent job of explaining the pieces and include interviews by the artist and musicologists. The same idea in the video world is Classic Arts Showcase. Supplement this with your own programs of the local symphony or chamber presenters. If you are associated with a good music school why are you not programming senior and graduate recitals? That should give the university a good reason to keep you on the air.
Do not be afraid to talk about what you are playing before you play it. I hear you saying talk will drive casual listeners away but your casual listeners are not supporting you enough compared to talk radio and they have so many other ways to hear background music as I have outlined above.
You need to build a set of listeners that are serious about classical music, interested in learning more about what they are listening to and thus serious in keeping you in business. While internet listeners can support anybody in the country they will support the local station if it provides good internet sound that stays up for an extended period of time. Why would they send money across the country? I have found that the two stations closest to me (both in not so great over the air sound because of my distance to the transmitters) are doing most of what I want and have high quality internet streams. The fact that they are transmitting local live on tape concerts, in addition to the national ones, only adds to the reasons to support the local stations.
I hope other classical listeners will find this site so they tell you what they want from a classical station.
Great points, both of you. As someone who streams live Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts on the web, I totally appreciate your view, David. However, we’ve never attempted to monetize that. We should be asking for donations, at least in Chicago.
The local stations air our shows and stream them in real time, or people can listen on-demand through a great audio player on our website, http://www.cso.org. And it’s material you can’t hear on CD. I’m utterly spoiled getting to listen to this amazing playing all day every day.
It’s definitely worth supporting.
I think that David Rich’s point about internet listeners is extremely important. When I was away from WNYC daytime before WNYC2, I was listening to and joined, KUSC, Los Angeles; WCNY, Syracuse; and WCPE Winston-Salem. They got my money. I never quit WNYC, but these other stations got my money because WNYC taught me to be a nudge, and I believe that being a nudge is a privilege of membership. Just ask Brenda Barnes at KUSC, Don Dolloff at WCNY, and Christa Wessell at WCPE (if they are all still there).
What I kept screeching about was exactly the fact of my membership, in each case from many miles away. I said that stations are no longer competing with just their local stations, that competition is now global. I said that they needed to figure out how to separate themselves from the pack. Get the bit rates up, stereo for sure, and unique programming, some things that others were not doing. At one point at least, KCRW’s second largest *membership* market was, lo and behold, New York City (cited in the New York Times).
As regards David’s point about audio quality, David Garland on “Evening Music” at WNYC would often suggest listeners with internet connectivity go to wnyc.org for a better experience than 93.9 FM because of the buildings in New York City.
And, finally, I am not sure that the local station will win the competition, unless it does a really good job. For example, C.P.R.N., before its timely death, Classical 24, all of that canned stuff, sorry, garbage, programming aimed at the lowest common denominator, the most ignorant listener. Alan Rich, the dean of American Classical Music critics calls that stuff musical wallpaper and I agree with him.
WNYC (Evening Music, Overnight Music) and WBGO have made live remotes into specialties.
These two outlets and WPRB, Princeton program good serious music, Classical and/or Jazz that you just do not hear anywhere else. They are winners and they are thriving.
I just clicked over to WNYC to get the proper name of the overnight music, and look what I found:
“WNYC acquires WQXR, plans to keep classical
By Ilya Marritz
NEW YORK, NY July 14, 2009 —Major changes are coming to New Yorkers’ radio dials. In a three-party deal announced today, the city’s only full-time classical radio station — WQXR — will be acquired by WNYC, and the New York Times will get out of the radio business. WNYC’s Ilya Marritz has details.
The deal is between WNYC, The Times and Univision, the Spanish-language broadcaster, and executives from the three companies say the transaction will preserve classical music on New York airwaves, and better serve the area’s Spanish-speaking community.
When all is said and done — pending FCC approval which is expected in the fall — WQXR will move to 105.9 and be run by WNYC as a classical station. Univision’s Spanish-language music station will move from 105.9 to 96.3 FM. Univision will pay the Times 33.5 million dollars, and WNYC will pay The New York Times 11.5 million.
WNYC intends to continue two of WQXR’s most listened-to live programs – Saturday Afternoon at the Opera and The Philharmonic This Week – on WQXR.
WQXR will become the third station operated in New York by WNYC Radio.”
Egad. WQXR, as the kids would say, fairly sucks. I hope that they get a makeover and not the other way around. I am going to try a back door to get some information.
What draws an audience (beyond serious, hard core classical music fans) to a classical music station?
I regret to say that some of the points, suggestions and programming strategies mentioned here tend to push away the other (larger) non-hard core classical music audience and potential future classical music radio audience.
Two disclaimers:
1. I consider myself a hard core classical music fan — at home, but not necessarily on the radio
2. I am not in favor of, or necessarily recommending, an all-Teleman-Vivaldi-Lite Classics format.
I don’t think playing music that a broad range of listeners will like and enjoy constitutes dumbing down.
By primarily mixing the well-known and musically substantial pieces with lesser known works of equal musical, expressive and entertainment qualities creates something smart, substantial, beautiful, entertaining and will attract and keep listeners listening.
We cannot afford to only serve the serious classical music listener, and again I don’t find playing music that many people love to be a dumbed down service.
I do not recommend we ignore the hard core fans when we program music. But, I believe that focusing on their tastes with the belief that the non-hardcore classical music listeners will follow and get excited about classical music is just not likely to happen.
Hard to stop here.
David
David S.-
I looked at your site. Very impressive. And, you are a pro. I am just a fanatic listener.
Your comments are certainly not without merit. The problem is that so many stations are turning to canned product like the recently deceased C.P.R.N. and Classical 24. Often this is just to face the reality of the need to save money. Alan Rich, the dean of American Classical Music critics, called it “musical wallpaper”. No one wants that.
My own experience with high quality live hosted Classical PubRadio includes only WCNY, Syracuse, NY; and WCPE, Winston-Salem, NC. I belonged to both stations.
I am a fan of late 20th century and New Music. But what I have said, many times, is that there needs at stations to be focus. I have given the example of a two-hour bloc of early music.
WPRB did a series of “Wall to Wall” Bach. The host really new his stuff. It was great. Also on WPRB, Marvin Rosen’s “Classical Discoveries” features only the Old and the New. His “Classical Discoveries Goes Avantgarde” does exactly what the name of the program suggests.
The WNYC project, 24 hours with John Cage was filled with knowledgeable people. All of this was focus. WNYC also puts archived New Sounds programs on wnyc2, the 24 hour web stream, at noon Monday-Friday.
And, at WNYC, Terrance McKnight plays a very eclectic mix as does David Garland. No one wants solid Osvaldo Golijov or John Luther Adams.
please visit my weblog, “Whither Public Radio and serious music”.
The other side of Wallpaper Music
Nobody likes classical wallpaper. In many of the previous “Future of Classical Music on the Radio” discussion over the past 15+ years, programmers mention their unhappiness with their belief that the only type of music they can program is bland background music that lives (if that is the word) well into the background. Music that is barely present, barely heard — wallpaper; it’s just there.
No one wants classical music on the radio to serve as wallpaper, and I don’t think it has to be that way.
I believe the answer begins with a willingness to hear and consider classical music on the radio as a potentially uplifting, pleasing and entertaining background experience.
Classical Music Radio can be, but often is not, a foreground listening experience. I agree with those who say that listening to the radio is not like going to a concert. Most of our listeners do not sit in front of their radio and listen…only.
More often, classical music radio is a life style experience. We use it to accompany our lifestyle, or life activities, during the day. (Sure, when those special moments in the music come, we might stop what we’re doing to take it all in.)
Just as there are many styles of wallpaper (Hospitals, Ad Agencies, Daycare Centers), there are many forms of wallpaper music.
What kind of lifestyle enhancing music do we want to provide our listeners?
I maintain there is classical wallpaper that can jump off the wall enough to inspire, calm and otherwise uplift the normal or stressful activities our listeners undertake during the day — whether they’re working at their computer, preparing for a meeting, washing dishes, carpooling kids etc.
We can change their day — or make it more manageable.
There’s a reason Poulenc songs don’t work at 9:30 am, but a Corelli Concerto grosso or certain Debussy Preludes will.
So, one question to consider adding to the process that determines what we put on the air might be, is this music that will create a pleasant or uplifting or calming or entertaining accompaniment to your listener’s day?
I think this is a substantial service — and a service of substance — we can deliver on a daily basis that serves listeners, serves the music and creates an added layer of value to your station.
With this colorful and communicative form of classical wallpaper, it’s my experience that classical music can more often become a foreground listening experience.
David
Less micromanagement–more joy. For starters…