It looks as if KFUO-FM, the only classical music station in the St. Louis market, is in danger of being sold. The city’s Post-Dispatch reported recently that the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, which owns KFUO, may be asking for upwards of $20 million for the commercial station, which has been broadcasting for 61 years.
Classical Radio Helps Green the Planet
Nashville, Apr. 1, 2009 —
Engineers at the Nissan plant in Nashville TN have made a unique discovery: they found that radio waves can increase the fuel efficiency of their new Altima hybrids. The radio waves work by setting up an oscillation of a razor-thin panel that was developed to keep the intake manifold from overheating, reports the April edition of Living Green.
A little bit of horsing around
I can’t resist the opportunity to add another chapter to what is becoming an ongoing Scanning the Dial series: Animals Enjoying Classical Radio. I get the chance this time thanks to an article in the British Telegraph newspaper about a woman in the U.K. who runs a stable. She was playing a classical radio station to keep her horses mellow — until The Man caught up with her.
A British entity known as the Performing Rights Society called Ms. Rosemary Greenway to inform her that playing the radio station qualified as a “performance” and she thus owed the PRS an annual license fee of 99 pounds. Greenway opted not to pay the fee and now plays the station only when alone at the stable (only employers of two or more people have to cough up the fee).
A roundup of fiscal woes
Yet again, much of this roundup of happenings in the world of classical (and jazz) radio relates to money — or a lack thereof.
:: The Canadian Broadcasting Corp. announced this week that it will cut 800 jobs to offset a $171 million budget shortfall. And it could cut even more jobs if the Canadian government rejects a CBC plan to sell $125 million in assets. The CBC’s television arm, which makes up 83 percent of the network’s budget for English-language programming, will see proportionally more cuts, but radio will also take its share. “Repeats will become more frequent to fill the void,” reports the Toronto Globe and Mail.