Big Picture

All-Classical Doesn’t Always Mean All-In

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The other day I saw news that longtime WCQS-Asheville Music Director Dick Kowal is planning to retire after three decades presenting classical music on the air.  With his departure comes an opening on WCQS’s schedule. To the station’s credit, it is keeping classical music on the air after Dick’s departure, but the content will no longer originate from WCQS – well, not exactly, anyway.  You can read more at the link, but the short version is that WCQS will air a new program voiced by Joe Brant, an announcer at WDAV in Charlotte. … Continue Reading

Unpacking the Classical Workforce Survey: A Few Additional Thoughts

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Classical Music Rising’s Workforce Survey, which I blogged about here and wrote about more extensively in Current, has already been making waves in the classical radio community.  To recap ever so briefly, the survey shows that over half of classical radio personnel are white men over 50.  Station leaders anonymously quoted in the survey are concerned about this for two main reasons: a) a looming talent vacuum and the potential for the classical format to be eliminated from their stations when older classical announcers retire or die, and b) older staff are … Continue Reading

Classical Music Rising’s Workforce Report is Out – The Results are Unsettling and Unsurprising

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A little over a year ago, the announcement was made by Station Resource Group (SRG) that the Classical Music Rising initiative had been formed, and the search was on for a project director who would lead representatives from participating stations in working groups that would help set the course for classical music radio in the coming years.   Classical Music Rising is now in full swing, and one of its first big reports has just been compiled: a survey of the classical music radio workforce in the United States.  This is something I … Continue Reading

Classical Music Rising: Does It Go Far Enough?

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A new year, and some new things happening in the classical music radio world.  Probably no news is bigger than SRG’s (Station Resource Group) announcement of a new task force to address the concerns that classical music broadcasters face going into the future.  This message appeared in my email inbox just yesterday: We are delighted to start the New Year with news that The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded $400,000 to support SRG’s Classical Music Rising, a collaborative project to shape the future of classical music radio. Five founding stations have committed … Continue Reading

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