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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?

Tragedy in Seattle: George Shangrow

Saturday afternoon, July 31, former KING-FM radio host and beloved Seattle conductor George Shangrow was killed in an automobile crash on his way to give a pre-concert lecture in Methow Valley.  The accident occurred during a thunderstorm when a 16 year old boy driving in the opposite direction crossed the centerline and hit Shangrow’s vehicle head-on. Shangrow was a [...]

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 [...]

What’s the Vector, Victor? Or Whose 4th was it, anyway?

These lazy days of summer are turning out to be anything but lazy for me.  One of the problems with writing a blog is keeping it up, and I’m so buried in the new American Music Festivals series that the blog has languished.  I did promise you some comments that were running on the AMPPR [...]

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 [...]

WQXR – Smart Thinking

Kudos to CEO Laura Walker and the WQXR/WNYC staff for having the vision to hire yet another creative thinker.  Graham Parker has been the Executive Director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, where he has been doing brilliant work.  He will fill the newly-created post of Vice President of Classical 105.9 WQXR.  Parker has a deep set of skills [...]

Lois Bent

Very sad news — Lois Bent of Yellowstone Public Radio passed away yesterday after an 18-month battle with cancer.  Here’s a brief article from the Billings Gazette. Is there anyone in classical radio who didn’t know Lois Bent?  Lois was always interested in the ideas of others and the new programming they came up with, especially [...]

More From AMPPR – Part Deux

Some continued reporting from AMPPR attendees.  Valerie Stains is a freelance producer who spent many years at NPR doing a variety of jobs.  She reports on two sessions: FRED  CHILD, host of Performance Today (Air Talent Training) As he has done for past radio conferences, popular PT host Fred Child had sent out a pre-conference call for [...]

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 [...]