News roundup: WQXR, new classical websites and more

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Welcome to the Sweating in a Brazilian “Winter”, Too Many Tabs Open in Firefox Link-dump Edition of Scanning the Dial. Freshness of items may vary.

Mark Ramsey on the future of music radio: “The ‘next big thing’ in radio is the gradual disappearance of music stations to be replaced by non-music stations, whether they are Talk, Sports, or new formulas yet to be devised.”

WNYC President Laura Walker in the New York Daily News on the future of WQXR under her station’s operation: “We’ll keep programs like the Saturday opera. But just the fact there won’t be commercials means the sound will change somewhat. That could mean, for example, that we will play longer movements from symphonies.”

An Examiner.com writer checks out the new Classical TV website. “I was delighted to discover in the Classical Music Video category a free offering of four works by Edgard Varèse conducted by Pierre Boulez. Given how difficult it is to find any performances of Varèse’s music, let alone hear recordings of his work on the radio, I was duly impressed with my discovery and dropped everything to view the program.” Another critic sizes up the Classical Archives website: “‘Archives’ delivers just about everything that today’s classical-music fan might desire, and it does so in one, easy-to-navigate place. This includes both information galore and recordings that can be streamed (for free) or downloaded onto an mp3 player.”

Brenda Tremblay has taken over as morning host at WXXI-FM in Rochester, N.Y., replacing former host Simon Pontin, who retired. “‘In the back of my brain, I thought, “Wow, this is really annoying. Who picked out all this happy music?”’ Then she realized it was her.” More in the Democrat and Chronicle.

The UK’s Guardian profiles Roger Wright, controller of the BBC’s Radio 3.

Sioux City, Iowa’s KWIT is now carrying North Carolina’s WCPE on an HD channel, plus some other programming. (Earlier Scanning the Dial post about WCPE.) Also, WEKU in Richmond, Ky., is launching a Web-only classical stream that could end up on HD.

And a performance studio at Boston’s WGBH was the backdrop for a photo shoot.

About Mike Janssen

Mike Janssen Served as Scanning The Dial's original co-authors from Mar, 2008 to Jan, 2010 and is a freelance writer, editor and media educator based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He has written extensively about radio, mostly for Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, where his articles have appeared since 1999. He has also worked in public radio as a reporter at WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he began his career in journalism and filed pieces for NPR. Mike's work in radio expanded to include outreach and advocacy in 2007, when he worked with the Future of Music Coalition to recruit applicants for noncommercial radio stations. He has since embarked on writing a series of articles about radio hopefuls for FMC's blog.

Mike also writes regularly for Retail Traffic magazine and teaches workshops about writing, podcasting and radio journalism. In his spare time he enjoys vegetarian food, the outdoors, reading, movies and traveling. You can learn more about Mike and find links to more of his writing and reporting at mikejanssen.net.

View all posts by Mike Janssen

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