Diversity Reprised

Earlier this week, our fearless blogmaster, Drew McManus headlined the main blog site Inside the Arts with my comments about Diversity.  Maybe the topic doesn’t have legs.  Or maybe we all have more important things on our minds right now, but I see classical radio being passed by.  I’d like you to add this topic to your mental archive and let it percolate.

I’ve gotten comments back about finding ways to bring diverse audience members into our western tradition, and a comment about education being the key to diversity.  Yet I want to know what we could do now — today — to include more people.  How can we make our product attractive to more than just 82% white people?

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Quote of the day

“We went country and what happens? Carrie Underwood shows up. She comes to the station, comes over to me and puts her arm around me and we had our picture taken. I mean, Beethoven never did that.” — Saul Levine, owner of KKGO (formerly K-Mozart) in Los Angeles. Quoted in the Orange County Register.

Throw Open the Doors to Diversity!

Here’s a tease for Monday’s post:

Today some very strong words from Bruce Theriault, Senior VP for Radio of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, who said we need to “throw open the doors” to diversity, to new people with new ideas, to young people who understand converging media formats, and to look around us and realize that the public radio audience is 82% white, while the American population is nearly 50% non-white.

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