All Entries in the "Big Picture" Category
Classical Birth Knell in Houston
Looks like Houston will get a full-time Classical station fairly soon, not though without some consternation and birth pains. According to a University of Houston news release, the University of Houston’s Board of Regents voted to buy Rice University’s student-run radio station, 50,000 watt KTRU for $9.5-million, If approved by the Feds it would end [...]
Rocket Science
How hard is it to successfully program a classical music radio station? Are there any tried and true formulas? Does what worked yesterday, still work today? Tomorrow?
Good News in Portland
All Classical FM at 89.9 in Portland, Oregon is having another spectacular year. My co-blogger Jack Allen would never toot his own horn, but the station is up 58% in listenership over two years. They have a 3.6 share, according to Arbitron, and have broken into the top ten stations in the city. In addition to [...]
Graham Parker – New VP of WQXR
People can have different relationships with WQXR besides broadcast. Radio isn’t just FM anymore. Great content will find people wherever they are – we need to open up the definition of what radio is. Graham Parker, the new VP of Classical WQXR. Parker is enthusiastic about the variety of platforms and programming coming out of WQXR, both on the [...]
Tough Being a Stand Alone Classical Station (Anywhere).
Stations are still not out of the woods. Not In Chicago or in any city for that matter. Revenue realities are coming into focus, but what about expense realities? We’re in fiscal-year-end mop up mode with a mini-June drive here in Portland, closing a revenue gap. It will indeed be interesting to watch as KING [...]
More from AMPPR
I asked some of the attendees at the AMPPR conference in NYC to write reports for this blog. Here is the first of two installments: From John Pitman, Music Director at All Classical in Portland OR: While visiting the facilities of WQXR/WNYC, I felt like I was walking the halls of some vast intergalactic public radio space [...]
In Search of Chopin
Back in 1992, I spent 3 days in Warsaw, not really thinking much about Poland or Chopin, but intent on wrangling a visa to get into Russia. It wasn’t easy at the time. Warsaw was the back door. Those 3 days turned out to be life-changing for me. Yes, Chopin just happened to be my [...]
CQ, this is your son. Come back?
Remember the 1997 film, Contact directed by Robert Zemeckis? I was reminded of the film upon watching the new series Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking airing on the Discovery Channel. His now already famous quote, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out [...]
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.
Acts of God
Given overall economic hardships, dwindling government funding for the arts, a distracted and over-stimulated audience, community malaise, dizzying media environment, must we in the arts also factor in “acts of god” when considering our long-term planning?
choggie kendall wrote:
W. Price wrote:
August Dyer wrote:
ray lee wrote:
Richard Mitnick wrote:
Kimberly Powell wrote:
Robert Aubry Davis wrote: