Hello,
A quick note from the Music Personnel Conference in New York City. Today was the first day of the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio annual conference. Despite the difficulties in the industry that Jack wrote about yesterday, the mood is very positive here.
I spoke this morning with Bryan Lowe, Program Director of KING-FM, who wanted me to clarify the situation in Seattle. His words:
Venerable classical broadcaster Norman Pellegrini passed away early this morning in Chicago. He was 79 years old.
Pellegrini started at Chicago’s legacy station WFMT at its founding in 1951, and served as the station’s Program Director for an amazing 43 years. He was responsible for the station’s eclectic mix of classical music by day, plus comedy and folk music on The Midnight Special. Norm hated the loud advertising and ubiquitous jingles on most commercial classical stations, and he is revered for sticking to his principles and keeping the advertising on WFMT quiet and dignified.
Responding finally to Mike’s query last week about how programmers choose their music, I think a good place to start is to look at how the successful stations program. Of course I have my own opinions but I’ll save them until the end of this post.
If you look at the big commercial stations, WQXR in NY, WFMT in Chicago, KDFC in San Francisco, you’ll find they all have one thing in common: they all play classical music!