The Rising Tide

A dear old friend of mine, long since gone, used to say when offered ice with her whiskey, “No thanks, that stuff sunk the Titanic, I’ll keep it neat.” She was a Belfast gal from way back.

We touched on “acts of god“ here recently, which is even more relevant this week given the floods in Tennessee. Affected once again, a whole community and naturally its fragile cultural institutions, prominent among them, the Grand Ole Opry and The Nashville Symphony Orchestra. I hear in my head Johnny Cash’s Five Feet High and Risin’.

For not-for-profit radio stations all across the country, our “air” is the rising tide, a powerful and benign force for good, not destruction, or can be, to lift all boats in our cultural community. Most not-for-profit, listener supported, classical stations have a heart for their community, strengthening the cultural fabric, as often stated in the mission, vision and values statements of the organizations.

The practical application can be another deal…sometimes dicey, preferential, unwieldy, and often unfair. The largest among our cultural partners can be like an ocean liner swamping all small boats in its wake.

A concerted effort needs to be made to create a tiered approach to formalizing these relationships, with all the terms spelled out and enumerated, expectations of access to our hosts and content platforms itemized, and underwriting fees attached if applicable. All quid pro quo cards on the table.

Still, the little guys can be left treading water.

Here at All Classical FM we have 3 such tiers designed to corral almost everyone appropriately:

1) Key Cultural Partners (KCP’s) the big players like the Symphony, Opera and Ballet
2) Cultural Partners (CP’s) medium size organizations
3) Arts Partners (AP’s) the small to tiny organizations

In addition to the tiers of access, I advocate for a series of free PSA’s (a lost art in terms of heart over mind public service and sounding local) to be integrated in the on-air schedule, with a set of criteria still applicable, standards of length & quality, frequency & duration, etc., all applied.

The upside of free PSA’s is the station also meets a couple of criteria for the CPB and FCC (think Public File “quarterly community issues program reports”).

Finally, our two locally produced showcase type programs on All Classical rely on the big players in town for quite a bit of interview fodder, we choose – not them, but we always reserve the right to sniff out the cool and unexpected in the cultural community. Our announcers also follow their noses when it comes to daily connecting the community dots with any recording that may come up in their shift. We continually point people to our comprehensive on-line cultural calendar.

With all this said, stations will still occasionally be bullied and cajoled by the loudest and strongest voices. It takes time and consistency of message to tame these critters. The bottom line is, as Marty says in her recent “Uh-oh. Pay-for-Play in Seattle” blog, be transparent about access and allocation of resources.

Our stations don’t belong to us or the biggest organizations in town, they belong to the whole community. As a result, we enjoy a 501(c)3 status. That’s how the FCC and the CPB see it, and by the way, how Lyndon Baines Johnson saw it when he had his vision for a “Great Society”.

Marty points these inequities out to us all the time. Thanks, Marty for your eyes and ears, but especially for your heart and conscience.

H2O. Liquid or solid. The rising tide: the stuff of life and death, and maybe solvency. Let’s always keep the small vessels in mind.

Sláinte!