[78-L] Too late to circle the wagons

[simmonssomer]

WNYC carries some NPR programs like Click and Clack and Prairie Home 
Companion but very little musique classique.
Mostly schmoozing about public affairs, art, architecture , music, politics 
and other "phone in" ephemera.
There is no dedicated NPR outlet.
But classical music 24 hours a day...that is/was WQXR. No other station 
broadcast that repertoire.
There is WKCR, the Columbia University FM station which plays a good deal of 
Jazz (much 78 rpm stuff) and classical music but it is a low power station 
and doesn't reach me very well here in Maplewood, a scant 25 miles from New 
Yawk.
Nope..WQXR was an institution, a jewel, a cultural asset with a lineup of 
literate, knowledgeable hosts and a recorded music library going back to the 
19th century. All of this is being moved into a sonic closet.
I'd better learn to mambo!

Al (Cha Cha Cha)Simmons

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 11, 2009 6:23 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Too late to circle the wagons


> Don't you guys have NPR (National Public Radio), or a facsimile up there?
> Down here in central Florida we have WMFE public radio which plays nothing
> but classical music 24 hours a day, with a few programs thrown in like
> Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk on the weekends.
>
> Bud
>
> -------Original Message-------
>
> From: David Lennick
> Date: 8/11/2009 5:51:39 PM
> To: 78-L Mail List
> Subject: Re: [78-L] Too late to circle the wagons
>
> I can remember when I'd listen to WQXR AM on the late night drive home 
> from
> Oshawa. Complete with live commercials for Hotel Bar Butter.
>
> Toronto doesn't have one station playing classical full time. The CBC cut 
> it
> back to 5 hours a day of "Classics for Imbeciles", CJRT is long gone, CFMX
> has
> been known to play some interesting tidbits interspersed with 6-minute
> clusters
> of the noisiest, most offensive commercials produced since Fessenden's 
> day.
>
> dl
>
> simmonssomer wrote:
>> The New York Times has announced that they've sold WQXR-FM, their 69 year
>> old classical music station with 6,000 watts of FM power, sitting in the
>> middle of the dial at 96.3. It was peddled to a publicly funded
> independent
>> station (WNYC 93.3) which will move what will be left of WQXR  way up the
>> dial to 105.3FM
>> The powerful 96.3 frequency is being handed over to a latino music 
>> station
>
>> At the new 105.3 location WQXR, or whatever it will be called, will boast
>> all of 600 watts. Hundreds of thousands of metro area suburban  listeners
>> will therefore lose the signal of this, the only classical station in our
>> New York Metro Area.
>> Apparently The Times needed the money. The price was in the neighborhood
> of
>> a pitiful 30 million...not as much as you'd get if you win the lottery.
>> The new owners implied that ESSENTIALLY the programming will be SIMILAR 
>> to
>> what it has been for the last 65 years, i.e. classical music.
>> I don't believe that  WNYC, a Public Affairs talk radio station,  will
>> maintain classical music programming on their new property.
>> They're not interested in it with their current programming on WNYC and
> the
>> lack of classical programming there bodes ill for their new little puddle
>> hopper.
>> If they stick to Classical it still won't matter.  They can't reach more
>> than say, twenty miles
>> The Times they are a-changin'.
>>
>> Nothing can be done.
>> Follow the money!
>> I am cancelling my subscription to The Times.
>> Big deal!
>>
>> Al Simmons
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG - www.avg.com
Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.50/2296 - Release Date: 08/11/09 
06:10:00