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 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 the station’s student-driven programming and create an all new 24-hour classical-music station, the call letters of which would be KUHC. The students at Rice aren’t laying down quietly, mounting what always feels like a futile SOS (save our station) campaign … Continue Reading

Kicking the tires of philanthropy.

To give or not to give, that is the question.

Not-for-profit radio stations around the country are entering into the spring fund-raising season, facing the same challenges as last year and the year before that, and the year before that. The perennial challenge is engaging the listener in a conversation about the relevance of the station in peoples’ lives and the need for voluntary contributions to cover the station’s expenses. There’s a cause and effect dynamic at work. Programming causes listening, good programming causes loyalty, loyalty causes giving. In theory. Is that all there is to it, do the best we can with creating content and then ask for money – and we shall automatically receive?

Continue Reading

Send this to a friend