New St. Louis Station Goes Live Next Week!

According to Samantha Liss of the St. Louis Business Journal, RAF-STL begins broadcasting April 8th at 107.3 FM, and at 96.3 HD2. RAF stands for Radio Arts Foundation, a small non-profit that has been determined and dedicated to bringing back classical music to the airwaves in St. Louis.  The former classical music station, KFUO switched formats in 2010. Thanks to a $1 million start-up grant from the Centene Charitable Foundation, RAF-STL was able to start the radio station, which is located in Clayton. “Listeners in the St. Louis community will now have … Continue Reading

Fabulous! Classical Radio May Return to St. Louis by Summer

There’s great news from Sarah Bryan Miller in St. Louis, who has done such a great job of keeping us informed at stltoday.com. The Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, which provided considerable financial support to the old “Classic99,” KFUO-FM, hopes to be on the air with a new FM station in early June, pending FCC approvals.  The proposed analog station will be audible “in the Highway 40-I-44 corridor,” said station manager Jim Connett. The Centene Foundation gave $200,000 to begin the process and has committed $1 million more; further fundraising will begin in earnest … Continue Reading

Pledge income down at WUFT, and a closer look at the KFUO sale

Two updates today on recent station-centric kerfuffles that we’ve been following. The first pertains to WUFT-FM in Gainesville, Fla., which as you might remember decided to drop classical from its primary signal and move all the music to an HD channel.

Well, the station had its first fund drive since the switch, and donations were down — by 37 percent, according to the Gainesville Sun.

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Chance of more classical in St. Louis

Hi there — apologies for the extended absence, but I’ve been whupped with deadline after deadline as of late. It’s nice to come up for air. As Douglas Adams said, “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”

So it looks as if classical fans in St. Louis despondent over the imminent loss of KFUO might have some salvation coming. KRCU, a public radio station in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is eying an upgrade of its signal in Farmington, about 80 miles outside of St. Louis. In a release on KCRU’s website, General Manager Dan Woods says that could get the station’s signal into parts of St. Louis.

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