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.

Commentator decries WGCU decision

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A music teacher in Naples, Fla., sounds off in the Naples Daily News about WGCU’s decision to drop classical music from its analog FM signal: Telling people that they will need to buy a special converter to receive classical music that is being outsourced from Minnesota is not a solution. That approach only helps to promote the idea that classical music is an elitist form of entertainment. I think that Tardiff and the management of WGCU have succumbed to the lowest common denominator, money, which always wins out in the end. But … Continue Reading

Baltimore station seeks a leader

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WBJC-FM, the all-classical public radio station in Baltimore, is looking for a new general manager. “[T]he General Man[a]ger is responsible for providing leadership, vision, planning and direction to Maryland’s oldest and largest public radio station, with approximately 200,000 listeners in the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan markets,” says the station’s website. WBJC is licensed to the Baltimore City Community College. We weren’t aware that the station’s previous g.m. had left, but we’ll see if we can find out where he’s gone, what he’s up to and if he’d like to chat it with us a … Continue Reading

Can classical stations take cues from Wordless Music?

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Critics, bloggers and other media have lavished praise on Wordless Music, a concert series based primarily in New York that mines the considerable overlap among the realms of indie, experimental, classical and new music. This series popped up again in my radar because it staged its first concert in San Francisco last week. On the evening’s program was “Popcorn Superhet Receiver,” a work by Jonny Greenwood, lead guitarist for Radiohead. Also featured were pieces by Arvo Part and John Adams, among others.

These concerts, which began in New York last year, are not just attracting critical praise, but eager audiences as well. Many have sold out. Impresario Ronen Givony told Gramophone that often “more than 90 percent” of the audience shows up for the rock, but after the performances they pepper him with questions about the classical works, wanting to know and hear more. And many of these concertgoers are on the younger end of the spectrum.

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Actor and classical radio host dies at 90

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Fred Crane, the last living male actor with a credit in the classic Gone with the Wind, died last week at the age of 90. Though his fame stemmed mainly from his appearance in the famous film, this obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes that “his main career was hosting a classical music radio show in Los Angeles for 40 years.” He retired from radio more than two decades ago. The Wikipedia entry about Crane says the station was KFAC-AM/FM, which dumped the classical format in 1989.

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