The classical stations have a thread going strong on the Listserv for the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio (AMPPR). They’re discussing whether stations should air public service announcements (psa’s) for free, for a fee, or not at all, and in the same vein how to decide who gets on-air interviews.
KCSN – Who Needs Announcers?
Thanks to reader Larry Mayer for letting us know about the massive — meaning 100% — cuts to KCSN’s announcing staff. The Northridge CA station has laid off their entire announcing staff and gone to unannounced, automated music from 6 am to 6 pm. According to John Rabe’s blog at Southern California Public Radio, KCSN plans to launch a digital stream on their website so you can see the name of the piece and the composer. For the moment it’s light classical, single movements, no-name stuff.
The Reality Out Here in Radioland, and Some News Bits
I spoke yesterday with Eric Teel, Program Director at Jefferson Public Radio in southern Oregon. Their network of stations and translators reaches a potential audience of 1 million in southern Oregon and northern California. Despite the large audience, he has a tiny staff. Eric does the octopus act of programming three stations: a 24 hour news/talk, a 24 hour classical, and a Triple A (adult contemporary). He recently lost his Operations Manager, so he also takes care of Ops, and he does a long air shift every day.
Buzz in Orlando About WMFE Dropping Classical
Your radio bloggers got super busy and haven’t managed to post over the last several days. Our apologies! Radio-Info.com reported earlier this week that dual format station WMFE in Central Florida is considering dropping the music from its FM side and going all news/talk. They do have a 24/hour HD stream. The rumor came from the Orlando Weekly, but I couldn’t get into the site, because my security software said it was an infected site. From Tom Taylor at Radio-Info.com: The Orlando Weekly notes that WMFE radio missed its latest fund-raising goal … Continue Reading