Out With The Old, In With The New

Peace or Victory? Let's hope for both...

I’m all for change. Change is good. Winston Churchill said, “There is nothing wrong with change, if it’s in the right direction.”

Everybody loves a good list, especially at the beginning of a new year. So, as we look to improve our stations this year, what comes to mind in terms of what you’d eliminate, or stop doing, and, what would you add to the mix? What needs to change?

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The New WQXR

Thursday night, at 8 p.m., the new WQXR as owned and operated by WNYC hit the airwaves.  The station moved from 96.3 to 105.9 and became a public radio station, while continuing to broadcast classical music. The new version of the old station started with a few introductory remarks and a concert performance by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra broadcast live from Carnegie Hall.

But what’s next?   How will the station’s overall sound change? Playlists for the few hours of operation so far are online (lots of standard orchestral music, but also Arvo Pärt and an opera aria), but it’s hard to tell the overall direction from such a short sample.

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KHFM Assessed And Some Tidbits of Good Cheer

Music critic D. S. Crafts wrote in his year-end review in the Albuquerque Journal:

The biggest news this year on the classical music scene was not in the concert halls, but on the airwaves. After Bob Bishop was laid off from KHFM, many of the on-air personalities resigned in protest, most notably Kip Allen. The station continues to operate, but the essential character that made the station so successful is gone. It is a shame that mere legal ownership (by out-of-state American General Media) allows such insensitive changes to the nature of beauty and companionship, which were at the core of this once-beloved cultural institution.

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