http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0315/p19s01-almp.html
Classical fades from the dial
As stations move to pop/rock or talk, fans flee to Internet and satellite
radio
By Lisa Leigh Parney | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
If you bought a radio station in 1955 for $8,000 and someone offered $165
million for it today, would you take it?
Before you could say Beethoven's Ninth, the owners of the classical station
WNIB-FM, in Chicago, last year sold their station to the Bonneville
International Corp. of Salt Lake City. The new owners switched off Beethoven
and Bach and switched on Doobie Brothers and the Doors. Since then, ratings
for the renamed "WDRV – The Drive" have soared.
"If you are an owner who is not committed to this format, it's very hard to
walk away from a large-scale offer," says Mario Mazza, vice president of
programming at Boston's only commercial classical-music radio station, WCRB.
Across the country, giant corporations like Bonneville are swallowing up
classical radio stations and switching to pop or rock formats to win a
larger share of ratings and boost profits.
Last week, managers at WNYC (one of two classical stations in New York)
announced that the station would trim five hours of its daily classical
programming in favor of talk and cultural shows.
In January, to the horror of classical-music lovers, Cox Communications
bought Miami's top-rated classical station, WTMI, and switched it to a
techno-dance format. "It's not that the stations are performing poorly," Mr.
Mazza points out. WTMI was the sixth- highest-rated station in the market
(out of 40) and made a nice profit of $6 million. It's just that even more
listeners – and higher profits – were possible with a new sound.
"Where commercial radio is concerned, classical music has fallen victim to
the profit motive," says William Goldsmith, program director of classical
music at XM Satellite Radio, based in Washington. "More and more stations
are owned by fewer and fewer companies. There are desires among commercial
broadcasters to make as much money as they possibly can."
Several decades ago, listeners might find six or seven classical stations
in a single city. Now, they're lucky to find one, even in big cities such as
Detroit or Philadelphia.
"The business side of classical music is changing significantly," says Tom
Bartunek, president and program director at the classical station WQXR in
New York. "Radio stations are dropping the format, and record companies are
reducing dramatically the product they are creating or repackaging."
Radio programming isn't the only aspect of classical music being affected.
Several orchestras, including those in St. Louis and south Florida, are
being forced to tighten their belts. The San Jose (Calif.) Symphony
suspended operations in October because of a $2 million deficit. And at the
Virgin Record Store in Chicago, classical inventory has been cut in half to
make room for more popular movie DVDs.
"Part of the crisis of classical music is the crisis of unrealistic
expectations," says Mr. Bartunek, whose station attracts 900,000 listeners
daily and close to 100,000 who listen online. "In its whole history,
[classical] has never been a broadly popular kind of music, and it still
isn't. It probably never will be."
But Bartunek and other station managers like Mazza say they strongly
believe that there is a demand for classical music – they just need to find
more creative ways of keeping current listeners and attracting new ones.
For instance, WQXR relaunched its website (www.wqxr.com) this year. It
features concert tips, playlists for every day of the month, and advice on
how to build a classical music library. And if there isn't a classical-music
station in your city, you can also listen to WQXR and most other classical
stations online, from anywhere in the United States.
More and more listeners are turning to the Internet, but they're also
discovering recently introduced satellite radio.
XM Satellite Radio offers listeners 70 music channels and 30 news channels,
including four classical-music channels, for about $10 a month (after buying
the special receiver).
"It's sort of like cable TV, only for radio," says Mr. Goldsmith.
"Satellite radio seems to be catching on faster than any other new
technological-entertainment innovation of the last 20 years – faster than
the CD, the VCR, and the DVD." It's an option now being offered in 2003
automobiles, like the Cadillac Escalade, or it can be custom-installed in
any vehicle.
Goldsmith, former host of a daily classical-music show, "Performance
Today," on National Public Radio, says he hears from people across the
country who are enjoying satellite radio, including a truck driver based in
St. Paul, Minn., who describes himself as "not your typical classical
listener."
"What a great joy it is to have classical music throughout my long hauls
between the Twin Cities, Texas, and New York," he writes.
Mazza, meanwhile, says he believes that most broadcasters don't understand
the classical format, and so they don't know how to be successful with it,
he says. "The key is strong sales people. "That's even more important with a
format that's not as mainstream as a pop format...."
Classical radio, Mazza says, is facing an uphill battle because advertisers
are most attracted to the coveted 25- to 54-year-old audience. Classical
does well with the over-55 crowd.
If there's one other genre that classical radio can be compared with, it's
country music. "Country has done a great job over the last decade into
changing that position," Mazza says. "They've got some fresh new talent, and
the music is essentially the same, but it's been updated."
"Classical has not been able to change that perception, unfortunately.
Consequently, people believe it is one thing, when it is really something
else – and something decidedly better than what they think it is."
© 2002 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.
Paul Moor (Berlin)
<Texas-Paule@Sigmund-Freud.Org>
Telefon: (030) 8639-5784
Telefax: (030) 8639-5785
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