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Thoughts on the CBC hubbub, and other news

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Authormike72x72_3 Perusing the latest coverage and opinionating surrounding the cuts at the CBC, including the controversial decision to shut down the CBC Radio Orchestra, a backlash to the backlash appears to be afoot. Specifically, some onlookers — even John Terauds, the classical music critic for the Toronto Star — are pointing out that there might actually be some sound reasons for nixing the orchestra. Terauds writes of the overall changes at CBC:

For many Radio 2 supporters, classical music is synonymous with the CBC’s mandate to “safeguard, enrich and strengthen the cultural, political, social and economic fabric of Canada.”

But that mandate also includes respecting the cultural diversity of the country. In Toronto, nearly half the population has no natural ethnic ties to Western culture.

A Los Angeles Times writer chimes in with a snarkier take and a headline that says it all: “Next thing you know, they’ll be dropping their radio ventriloquist acts too.” “…[T]ake a look at the protests that followed the announcement of the orchestra’s closing and you may ask what eon these people are living in,” writes Tim Cavanaugh.

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WETA and the spirit of on-air fundraising

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Authormike72x72_3 Tuesday I paid a visit to Dan DeVany, vice president and general manager of Classical WETA 90.9 FM, the all-classical station in the nation’s capital. We talked about WETA’s quick journey over the past three years from a dual-format news/classical station to an all-news station and finally to the music outlet it is today — a move that has brought it to a new level of success. It was a great discussion, and I’ll share the highlights with you soon.

But I did want to share something in particular right away. Dan brought to my attention a blog post by Robert Paterson, a consultant who has been helping public radio and TV stations adjust to the new realities of the media world. In fact, “New Realities” was the name of an ambitious strategic planning exercise that involved all of public radio, led by Rob and his crew a few years back. Take a look at Rob’s blog and you’ll see that he is the ultimate big-picture thinker. I often find his observations provocative and inspiring.

In this post Rob drew on a conversation with Dan about on-air fundraising around classical music. Dan told me and Rob that WETA’s first fund drive after going all-classical early last year was a smashing success. But in the fall they encountered a dauntingly slow start, forcing them to take a fresh look at how they were trying to connect with their listeners. As Rob describes it:

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Links: Future of radio, Tennessee’s WUOT, CBC’s Radio

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The first hour of The Diane Rehm Show yesterday focused on the future of radio. Thanks to the Public Radio Program Directors’ blog for the heads-up. There’s speculation afoot that WUOT-FM, a news/classical public radio station in Knoxville, Tenn., may drop its midday music (though I think the Metro Pulse’s substantiation of this is a little shaky). But the station’s program director does confirm that WUOT might replace some of its local classical programming with Classical 24, the most widely carried around-the-clock satellite feed. And a critic writing for the (Saskatoon) StarPhoenix … Continue Reading

The dual format: neither fish nor fowl

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In my last post about broad trends in classical radio, I started to examine the odd beast known in public radio as the “dual format.” A dual-format station airs both news and classical music on weekdays, with NPR’s morning and afternoon newsmagazines, Morning Edition and All Things Considered, sandwiching a midday block of music.

Many stations in public radio adhere to this format — a little more than half of the 450 stations airing classical are dual-format. Most of them serve small- and medium-sized markets where the smaller number of public-radio listeners makes being “all things to all people” more feasible. But a considerable number of dual-format stations have been cutting back on classical in recent years or dumping it entirely, in part due to the thorny problems posed by airing two different kinds of programming. Research shows that most listeners who enjoy classical avoid news programming and vice versa, which forces a dual-format station to try to serve two different audiences. What’s more, stations have found greater success raising money around news programming than around classical.

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