Programming

Unpacking the Classical Workforce Survey: A Few Additional Thoughts

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Classical Music Rising’s Workforce Survey, which I blogged about here and wrote about more extensively in Current, has already been making waves in the classical radio community.  To recap ever so briefly, the survey shows that over half of classical radio personnel are white men over 50.  Station leaders anonymously quoted in the survey are concerned about this for two main reasons: a) a looming talent vacuum and the potential for the classical format to be eliminated from their stations when older classical announcers retire or die, and b) older staff are … Continue Reading

Chamber Music Aversion – What Gives?

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We often say that radio is one of the most intimate of all media.  Classical radio, in particular, fits the bill: when I’m on the air, I don’t like to imagine that I’m speaking to hundreds or thousands of people at any given moment, but rather just a small group of people who are sharing in the listening experience. Intimacy (in the strictly platonic sense) has been an important part of music for centuries.  If you look at the majority of works written by the great composers, it’s chamber music.  Think about … Continue Reading

Colorado Public Radio Ends Colorado Symphony Broadcasts

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In a decision that undoubtedly won’t sit well with a number of its listeners, Colorado Public Radio announced that it will no longer carry live or tape-delayed broadcasts of the Colorado Symphony, ending a 15 year partnership.  On the surface, this news looks like part of the trend in classical music broadcasting in which stations many stations are forgoing local content for the sake of cheaper, more bland, imported music.  In reality, the reasons behind this move are much more complex, and raise questions that all stations must face about content partnerships: … Continue Reading

Revisiting the Mike Nichols Test

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Today, the world learned of the passing of film and stage director Mike Nichols, known for many great things, among them his 1968 Best Director Oscar for “The Graduate.”  Mr. Nichols was also a radio personality – while in school at the University of Chicago in 1952, he became an announcer at WFMT, and was the first host and producer of the station’s Saturday night folk and comedy show “The Midnight Special,” which airs to this day. One of the other radio legacies that Nichols left was his tongue-twisting test for would-be … Continue Reading

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