Anybody have any money? The Indiana Gazette reports that Northeast Indiana Public Radio (NIPR) is selling its three classical stations.
The organization plans to sell WBNI-FM – 94.1, WCKZ-FM – 91.3 and W204BF-FM – 88.7, [general manager] Joan Brown said.
If your station airs Performance Today from American Public Media, you can hear the piece John Williams wrote for the Inauguration. Don’t you think it’s fantastic that President Obama (I love the sound of that) chose classical music for the featured piece at the Inauguration itself?
On this historic day, leading up to an even more historic day, I was just thinking about where we’ve been and where we’re going in our narrow slice of American life called Classical Music Radio. Those of us who are already committed to the beauty and life-affirming power of classical music know what our art form can do for people’s lives if they get the chance to learn about it and appreciate it.
Music critic D. S. Crafts wrote in his year-end review in the Albuquerque Journal:
The biggest news this year on the classical music scene was not in the concert halls, but on the airwaves. After Bob Bishop was laid off from KHFM, many of the on-air personalities resigned in protest, most notably Kip Allen. The station continues to operate, but the essential character that made the station so successful is gone. It is a shame that mere legal ownership (by out-of-state American General Media) allows such insensitive changes to the nature of beauty and companionship, which were at the core of this once-beloved cultural institution.