[78-L] Too late to circle the wagons

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Michael Biel" <mbiel at mbiel.com>
> From: "Bud Black" <banjobud at cfl.rr.com>
>> 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
> First of all, I like classical music and I grew up listening to WQXR.
> And I am speaking as someone who has been involved with Public Radio for
> 45 years -- since before it was called "Public" Radio (that phrase was
> invented in the late 60s by the Rockefeller Commission on Educational
> Broadcasting).  I've been involved with about six public stations and
> managed two.  So I speak from experience.  A 24-hour classical music
> format is the easiest, cheapest, most mindless, meaningless, and
> absolutely misguided and worthless programming format that a Public
> Radio Station could do.  Making a public station an all-ANYTHING station
> is a total waste of the resource.  Speaking as a long-time broadcast
> educator, if the station is related to an educational institution -- and
> most of them are -- having a single-format station is the worst possible
> use of what could be an important teaching tool, and if that format is
> classical music, it is of no use and no interest to the students.  It
> serves a minor audience, and it makes the college's president and the
> chair of the board of regents happy -- and nobody else.  It is a format
> that provides absolutely no educational purpose in training broadcasting
> students.  Of course the rap format of my daughter's college station was
> not any better, but at least the kids were interested.  SOME of the kids
> were interested.  My daughter had to break format to do her program, and
> she eventually was manager of the station.  A COLLEGE RADIO STATION IS
> NOT THERE TO SERVE A LISTENING PUBLIC, IT IS THERE TO PROVIDE TRAINING
> FOR BROADCASTING STUDENTS.  ANY COLLEGE RADIO STATION WHICH DOES NOT
> TRAIN A SIGNIFICANT NUMBER OF STUDENTS, BUT INSTEAD HAS A PROFESSIONAL
> STAFF, IS A TOTAL WASTE OF THE SCHOOL'S MONEY AND SHOULD BE CLOSED DOWN.
>
I was attending Illinois State University back in the 1973-76 period. ISU 
had two stations:
WGLT was the FM "official" station...it played classical music; I was at the 
"carrier
current" station, WILN (now FM, with different call letters) where I was the 
"Music
Director" and was tasked with setting up a usable LP library. My schedule 
left me
A LOT of time for "elective courses" (wotever I dommed well wanted to 
tale?!)  so
I took enough radio and "broadcasting" courses to almost qualify as my third 
"minor!"

Learned a lot, hands-on, about physically "editing" r2r tape during that 
time. A LOT
of the "broadcasting" students were hoping to work as deejays (until they 
found out
the bad news, about the minimal pay and the number of graduates per 
available
deejay position, anyway...?!). One of my compatriots at ILN wound up 
teaching
broadcasting at a smaller private school in new england; IIRC, few if any 
others
wound up working in radio...?!

ILN basically had a "pop music" format...they tried to avoid playing the 
same
"progressive rock hits" that could be heard all over the FM band (though the
deejays didn't really try all that hard?!). I had just barely started 
collecting 78's
that far back, so it never occured to me to try and create a vintage-music 
show?!
We could be heard in all the dorms on campus...and received a lot of 
requests
(much to our surprise...?!).

These days, I'm "staying in practice"...I do a blues program (web-cast) fot 
the
net-based "radio station" of our local "college" (community). When I started 
I
was the only non-student "volunteer" on staff...I have NO idea whether the
school teaches any broadcasting courses (I HOPE they do...?!).

I'm also tempted to wonder how many students (at all the relevant schools)
take broadcasting courses in hopes of being "the next dj star"...and then
find out the hard way that just "ain't gonna happen" in the real world...?!

Steven C. Barr
>
> The stations I managed at Temple and Northwestern were open-format
> (including classical music programming produced by students who wanted
> to do classical music), and had huge student staffs.  WRTI-FM at Temple
> became an all-jazz station the year after I left, and when the last
> classical station in Phila close down they hired that professional
> staff, became half jazz and half classical, and moved the studios
> essentially off-campus, becoming totally worthless for teaching.  I
> would say that during the four years I was there and the one year after
> when my roommate managed it, we had more student staffers in those five
> years than all of the 40 years that have passed since combined.
>
> I'm not saying that there should not be any classical radio stations,
> only that it is not appropriate to waste a college radio station license
> on a single-format station.
>
> Professor Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>
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