There are lots of sessions going on at the Public Radio Program Director’s meeting, but of course on this blog I’m just reporting on the classical music ones. This morning was a session on fundraising, and I’m pretty sure the stations don’t want me to give away the secrets of how they’re planning to persuade you to donate. Let’s just say they sincerely want classical radio to be a partnership with their listeners, and the advice they gave us is to focus on how valuable classical music is to our lives, and that radio stations are the ones providing that value — basically for free. I think we sometimes forget that fundamental truth and we get caught up in the minutiae.
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Radio’s future, and where classical fits in
In a provocative blog post, venture capitalist Fred Wilson envisions the future of listening to music online—which, in his view, is with time going to amount to listening via mobile devices as well. The whole post is worth reading, but this excerpt gives a taste of the disruption to traditional listening habits that Fred sees coming:
I think of these web services as the new radio stations. Everyone of my generation has had their favorite radio stations. Everyone of my kid’s generation will have their favorite web music services. There will be hundreds of them. All supported by advertising, just like traditional radio stations, and all of them licensed by rights holders (eventually), and all of them paying the rights holders a little coin every time their song is played. And because these services will be free to anyone who wants to listen, they will be very popular. Never before have you been able to decide you want to listen to something you don’t currently own and then just play it. No searching on Limewire or bittorrent, no waiting for the download, you type in the name of the song you want to play and you hit play.
What he says makes sense to me, and it echoes a lot of what I hear from others in radio. People who want to hear music are increasingly turning to devices and locations besides their radios, a trend that’s expected to continue. They’re going to iPods, satellite radio and Web streams. This is part of why public stations are airing more local and NPR news—they see news as a franchise that is less threatened by new technologies.
CBC cuts classical; Kansas station airs taped local concerts; N.Y. host retires
More goings-on in the news:
Commenter Chris asked us to pay attention to happenings across the border at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., so here you go. CBC is cutting back on classical music aired during its weekday schedule in favor of more pop, rock and alternative. The move is aimed at attracting more listeners to the service, reports the CBC’s own website. (More in the Globe and Mail.)