Money

NEA Shows Little Love for Classical Radio

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In what was a surprise to virtually all the major producers of classical radio, the National Endowment for the Arts has taken a hard left turn, and diverted long-standing television and radio funding to gaming, mobile, and web projects. A detailed and scathing article in the New York Times gives examples of organizations that have lost some or all of their funding after years of building partnerships with the NEA.  The MET Opera, PBS, and American Public Media (Performance Today and SymphonyCast) all had their funding decimated.  Some of these organizations regularly received large grants, but … Continue Reading

Spring Fundraising – Guilt, Dread, oh yeah, and Gratitude

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It’s that time for many stations.  Spring fundraising time.  There’s a tongue-in-cheek, somewhat uncomfortable op-ed on Chron.com from the Houston Chronicle.  History Professor and KUHF listener Robert Zaretsky writes about his dread of fundraising and guilt for not donating regularly. I confess a sense of guilt plays a role in my reaction. Though I regularly listen to KUHF, I have been an irregular member. Like the rest of us, I suspect, I have a number of strategies for dealing with this form of guilt. There is the “that will show ’em” gambit, … Continue Reading

Oh, Kansas. Not Again…

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Poor Kansas has an anti-intellectual, anti-arts governor, Sam Brownback, who defied even the GOP legislature to eliminate the state arts commission.  He has the distinction of making Kansas unique.  It’s the only state in the country without a state-funded arts commission. Now Brownback has fired another shot by drastically cutting the state’s public broadcasting appropriation.  Current state funding for public broadcasting is about $2 million in Kansas, but Brownback’s budget proposal cut that to $600,000.  LJWorld.com reports that some in the state legislature tried unsuccessfully to restore $800,000 of the cuts to the budget. The … Continue Reading

Chicago Listeners Lose on Classical Cruise

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A story today in the Chicago Reader about a classical music cruise is enough to make you very sad.  Listeners of WFMT in Chicago were encouraged to sign up for a wonderful-sounding cruise: It was a classical music ocean cruise, a dreamy January escape to the Caribbean aboard a luxury vessel, with composer Roberto Sierra, rising conductor Eckart Preu, Grammy-winning chamber group the Parker Quartet, and a 50-piece orchestra providing the live soundtrack. That in itself was amazing, Dever says, but here was the corker: Bill McGlaughlin, the genial host of WFMT’s nationally … Continue Reading

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