Budget woes persist; Ohio station simulcasts classical

Apologies to our readers for the, uh, radio silence here at Scanning the Dial as of late — your scribes have been buried under deadlines and other pressing concerns and haven’t had as much time for blogging as we’d like. But we have more reflections on last week’s Music Personnel Conference coming your way, including posts from guest blogger Mona Seghatoleslami of West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

In the meantime, a few recent news items worth noting:

:: Budget difficulties continue at stations across the country. The Berkshire Eagle reports that WMHT in Troy, N.Y., faces a deficit of $235,000. With an annual budget of $8.5 million, that’s not as severe as some stations are dealing with, but WMHT has frozen hiring and cut a monthly magazine. A proposed budget for the state of New York would also drastically reduce WMHT’s state support.

But it’s not all bad news for stations, as the article points out. WFCR in Amherst, Mass., has expanded its audience and finished a recent fund drive in excess of its goal. The station credits its success in part to expanding its signal with the use of several new low-power transmitters.

:: The student-run radio station at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, is now simulcasting Dayton classical station WDPR weekday mornings, according to the Springfield News-Sun. I’ve seen numerous other examples of colleges teaming up with public radio stations for simulcasting purposes in recent years. The trend may make for strange bedfellows — as the article says, “[I]f you woke up recently expecting to hear Death Cab for Cutie, you weren’t still dreaming — that really was Respighi.” And it’s not always popular with students. But hey, at least in this case it means more classical music on the air. What do you think?

:: Finally, a station in Florida has upgraded to HD Radio and will devote a second digital channel to classical music, says the Panama City News Herald.