Just a brief post for a busy Monday. If you want to have some fun, try imagining what you would program if you could program the new NY station. A great post in the NY Times on Friday asked listeners what they would like, and the responses are a lot of fun to read. Check it out here. Happy Monday, all. Hope you’re having a great summer.
The oldest American commercial classical station is commercial no more, but it will remain classical. WQXR will be sold by The New York Times to public radio station WNYC and Univision.
The call letters and the classical music will move across the dial from 96.3 to a weaker signal at 105.9, while Univision’s Spanish-language WCAA will move to 96.3.
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!
I’m nervous about even passing on the rumor, because I don’t think there’s any real information, but various sources are speculating that WQXR is not making enough revenue. Thanks to Mike Dorner in Albuquerque for calling our attention to an article Wednesday in the New York Daily News.