Marty Ronish

Marty Ronish is an independent producer of classical music radio programs. She currently produces the Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcasts that air 52 weeks a year on more than 400 stations and online at www.cso.org. She also produces a radio series called "America's Music Festivals," which presents live music from some of the country's most dynamic festivals. She is a former Fulbright scholar and co-author of a catalogue of Handel's autograph manuscripts.

Is Radio in a Coma? Nah, It’s Just Resting.

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Authormarty72x72 Is the country ready for change? Is the radio world ready for change? Some interesting posts this past week (all of which I, a middle-aged woman read online) bear on the future of classical music radio.

First is a post by Todd Feinburg, who despite his inane political blather has made some intelligent observations about the current dilemma radio finds itself in. He says radio is in a coma. In an article titled Is Radio Headed For Extinction? Feinburg writes

The radio industry is in shock. An absolute coma.

Radio sees the enemy bearing down and closing in, but it doesn’t know how to respond. It’s frozen in place, unable to move. No defense is being offered, no counter attack.

The foe that has radio folks terrified is the Internet. New technologies are encroaching on radio’s traditional domain with the same speed that the auto and airline industries once pounded the railroads into near extinction. And radio is mimicking the railroad industry’s response to its death knell — whether from arrogance, fear, or institutional inertia, radio is failing to see that it must embrace the future rather than resist it or run from it…

The radio industry needs to learn that it’s in the audio distribution business…But the fear that radio feels over the encroachment, and the revenues lost to the Internet, are causing radio to pull back rather than to be aggressive. In the short term, this means tighter budgets and fewer jobs. This is exactly the wrong response, of course.

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The Democratic Primary as Classical Radio Metaphor

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Authormarty72x72 I’ve never been a news junkie before, but all of a sudden the drama of the primaries has grabbed me by throat and won’t let go. It’s an opera in the making.

The arguments in classical music radio are amazingly similar to the conflicts between the two Democratic candidates. Should we keep the old tried and true conservative model, or should we break out and take a chance (some say “risk”) with something unknown and exciting, and in the process reach a whole different demographic?

The Candidates
Barack Obama could be called the Peter Gelb of Election ‘08. Peter Gelb, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera, hired director Julie Taymor to spin Mozart. He took the opera to the people, airing it in our own local movie theaters. He launched a 24-hour Metropolitan Opera channel on satellite radio, put live streaming performances on the web, broadcast opening night on huge screens in Times Square and Lincoln Center Plaza, and offered $20 weekday tickets.

Gelb didn’t let fear of change or shrill criticisms stop him. Mary Jo Heath, who produces the Met Opera radio broadcasts, told me you can’t believe the volume of nasty emails and calls they got at first from people who didn’t want change. I’ll bet $2,300 (the maximum legal political donation) that those same “whiners” are the ones mobbing the movie theaters now.

On the other hand (full disclosure), I work for the Hillary Clinton of radio. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra is a powerful legacy orchestra, a grande dame of orchestras, and we distribute our broadcasts through the WFMT network, which is an old-fashioned legacy service. They are willing to consider new ideas, but they are not risk-takers. Every idea has to be vetted before it makes the air. Not a bad policy when you have such an important legacy. They take themselves and their reputation very seriously.

The Hillary Clinton model of classical music radio has its contradictions. Clinton talked about getting us out of Iraq at the same time she threatened to obliterate Iran. Many classical radio program directors keep saying they want “fresh” programming and “innovative” ideas; yet when you ask them what they mean, they say they want interviews with artists and great live performances. Same old, same old. Then they play the Holberg Suite and Espana again.

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A Monday Morning Rant

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Authormarty72x72 Two recent articles about radio and music got my juices flowing: one was a post last week at “Inside Music Media” called Drinking Radio’s Kool-Aid by Jerry Del Colliano, whose understanding of the radio industry is both insightful and cynical. He was quoting David Rehr, CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters, who said,

…being local, in and of itself, is not what defines radio’s value… It’s the accessibility and the connection with radio personalities. And it’s being everywhere and available to everyone. A radio is not a jukebox. If you’re listening to radio, you want to hear a human voice sharing that same moment in time that you are. There is power in that personal bond. A CD doesn’t have that connection. An iPod doesn’t have that. No, our model is not broken.

Jerry’s response?

WHAT? This is outrageous. If there is anything about radio that is compelling it is that radio is a local medium. It’s defined by being a local medium. Even the NAB refers to terrestrial radio as local radio. If you take local out of radio you have — well, the Internet. The world wide web. That’s not radio’s strength.

Hold that thought.

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More on the CBC

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There’s a passionate and well-written article by Janet Danielson in the Vancouver Sun from Monday about the CBC orchestra. Click here to read it. She reiterates the point that the CBC Orchestra plays new music by Canadian composers — content you won’t find anywhere else. Even if other orchestras pick up the baton that the CBC is dropping, it’s hard for them to get new music played on the radio. Program directors have a new-music filter. They always have to keep those ratings up. I suppose new music appeals more to a … Continue Reading

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