Posted on 06/07/2004 6:43:16 AM PDT by Valin
IF THE AMERICAN FEDERATION OF BLACKSMITHS AND BUGGYWHIP MANUFACTURERS had held a convention in 1910, in those last sullen moments before the Horseless Carriage put them all out of business, then this is what it must have felt like--the same forced cheerfulness laid over the same defeated air, the same stiff upper lip at the prospect of the inescapable end. Outside the Hilton Clearwater Beach Resort, on the Florida coast near Tampa Bay, the beach was streaked with wind and black thunderheads stacked up along the horizon. Inside the hotel, members of the Association of Music Personnel in Public Radio had gathered for their 42nd annual convention. These are the programmers who play what remains of classical music on America's noncommercial radio stations. They milled about the Citrus Room, and ducked in and out of the Mangrove Room, and stepped hopefully toward the Manatee Room, where, in the manner of all such trade conventions, a space had been set aside for interested tradesmen to hawk their wares to this select professional audience. It was nearly empty.
On a couch next to the Dolphin Room, Dave Glerum sat talking about classical music and public radio. Glerum is a friendly and thoughtful man, bearded and roundish, who serves as the music director of WMFE, the public radio station in Orlando. He's been coming to the AMPPR conference for 25 years.
"Believe it," he said. "This was once like a major trade show. You had 30 record labels here, giving records away, all kinds of free stuff. Artists would perform during the day, every night, promoting their records. There were throngs of people all weekend long. By Sunday, when you left, you still wouldn't have met 80 percent of the attendees. That's how many people there were. And now it's . . . well . . ." He waved his hand toward the conference-goers who drifted from room to room, singly or in groups of twos and threes.
Glerum has been working at WMFE since 1990. He was hired away from WXXI in Rochester, New York, where he'd worked for more than 10 years. In retrospect, those years now look like the tail end of the glory days of classical programming on the nation's public radio stations, when a large majority of them devoted a large majority of their airtime to music.
"When I came to WMFE, we had three full-time on-air announcers and two part-time announcers," he said. "Now we have no part-time announcers and one full-time announcer." He tapped his chest. "Me."
Like most public radio stations, WMFE was conceived as a "fine arts" station, broadcasting classical music and other arts programs around the clock. Today it carries only three hours a day of its own classical programming. The rest is talk--call-in shows, BBC news, interview shows, as well as the flagship newsmagazines from National Public Radio, All Things Considered and Morning Edition--plus several hours, most of them overnight, of a syndicated classical music service, called Classical 24, that originates from a studio in Minnesota but is designed to sound like local programming wherever it's played. Listeners in Orlando worry that much of even this canned music will soon be replaced by more talk shows. And they're right to worry.
(Excerpt) Read more at weeklystandard.com ...
Are you suggesting the effete snobs who typically support "public" radio and "public" television would deliberately sabotage the profit-motivated, tax-paying, economy-boosting competition? And help destroy music and the arts in the process?
Horrors!
"Citizens of the world" is how Giovannoni describes listeners who are drawn to public radio by news-talk. They constitute, he's written, "a community of listeners that transcends geographic boundaries, a national, now international community of shared interests, values and beliefs . . . a community of interest in which familiarity is measured in mindsets, not miles; a family of relations in which affinity, not genetics, determines kinship. Our listeners want neighbors who hold the attitudes they hold, who seek the information they seek, who enjoy the entertainments they enjoy. . . . Public radio is the place our listeners call home. They rise and return to it daily, their roots most deeply embedded in network news programming, most reliably nourished by rich sources of reporting, writing, and producing."
Left-wing talk-radio. Why do I have to pay for it? (And Pacifica also gets Federal dollars).
I don't like NPR's politics, but I do like their programs on a "sister station" KHKE, it's easily the best sounding station, they play jazz during the day with Bob Parlocha (sp); and Peter Van DeGraff handling the classical at night. Neither could handle the "free market", since our pop culture citezenry only seem to like Rap or Trash metal? There are no commercials on KHKE, which makes it even more desirable. I enjoy country music, oldies and now and then, Classical/Jazz.
The failure of Herr America has revealed why Left-Wing Hate Radio will remain a publicly subsidized broadcast.
Houston's locally owned commercial classical music station was sold to a national owner who runs two other "urban" stations in town. It is believed the format will become hip hop.
I could buy this argument if we are not going to have any government subsidy for broadcasting. PBS' fundraising slogan is "If Public Broadcasting did do it, who would?"
Here in Houston, PBS shows gangsta rap videos with pimps and hos on Saturday nights around midnight. Several channels are already dedicated to such programming. It does not need to be distributed, let alone embraced and celebrated, by public broadcasting.
And news-talk radio MUST not become advocacy radio if it is to remain a 501c3 charity.
I will say this, the 501c3 issue being addressed by Pacifica may actually make it possible for FReepers or others to go on and push the conservative agenda. Whereas a host cannot come out for a position, a debate on the issues can be addressed if there is someone to represent both sides of an issue. They are confident in their positions that they will "win". I've heard them argue and that won't be the case.
I'll give you another reason for the ending of "classical" programming, political correctness. At least on Pacifica you will hear honesty about such decisions "they are dead white European males".
Horrors, indeed.
Apologists for state action in these matters are guilty, imo, of what I call malicious ignorance.
Self-imposed ignorance is a cousin of dumb insolence, and deserves a slap, if not a boot. ;^)
My dad is conservative but he still subscribes to the local daily paper and listens to public radio (more for classical music, occasionally for "news"). Largely he listens to conservative talk radio.
We were riding around on a Sunday recently (around noon) and there was a woman on there who had an adadictomy surgery to become more like a man (no one actually changes their sex, it is merely cosmetic). She was discussing the testosterone treatments she was receiving and discussing in detail about getting more sexually aroused by any woman she saw (almost to the point of rape). She was also talking about how sex was on her brain a lot more and that she was becoming more aggressive. Real knuckle dragger stuff. Certainly not appropriate for a church going audience out for lunch. He had the radio down low but when this graphic account went ON and ON he just had to change the station.
Have a link?
How sad. They had once broadcast some of the best classical music. I had, in the past, looked to them for a peek inside the best of other cultures, but now, so often, it seems like they think they must demonize our culture to uphold the beauty of others. They've unnecessarily lost their heads in their bid to embrace other cultures. Ridiculous, of course. They are so far left they are ready to tip over. And their leftist-Marxist crap makes it so hard to stay tuned in on the hopes of some good music.
Here's Radio Clásica:
http://www.rne.es/rc/index.htm
And here's a link that takes you to all sorts of classical music internet radio, all over the world:
http://www.classicalwebcast.dds.nl/index.html
Take a look at various studies on the "Best places to do business." Every city in the top of the list has a strong an active arts community. The last couple of companies looking at my area came to visit, they went to the theater, to the symphony, to the art museums. We landed four businesses, each employing 200 or more people at good wages, because we had something for those employees to do in their free time. This is not our just our take on the issues; these are the comments of the individuals who visited.
If that $56,000 in tax payer dollars produced nearly $500 million in local investments and jobs, isn't that worth the expense?
The arts are important. As a fairly young country, the United States does not have a thousand years of cultural heritage to fall back on; we need what we can get. We need the arts.
And yes, tax payer dollars do go to pay for baseball and other professional sports. There are few stadiums or arenas in operation today that are funded entirely by the owners. Buut those stadiums bring hundreds of jobs to those communities, and not just the athletes. Look at all the office personnel, vendors, grounds keepers, maintenance people, who all work at these facilities. Not to mention merchandisers around the community. All this would be lost without that stadium.
Does that mean I like it when I see a pro athlete making an eight or nine figure salary? No, it doesn't. But I know there is a hot dog vendor at the game, putting him or herself through college on that job. That's who I'm rooting for.
If liberal taxpayers had to pay for conservative radio, they would understand the depth of the insult PBS has become.
I recall reading a report (from the Taxpayers League of Mn.?) stating that for the taxpayer they are a money losing proposition.
Does that mean I like it when I see a pro athlete making an eight or nine figure salary? No, it doesn't.
They are making exactly what the market says they should be making.
"Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit,
Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit"(to the tune of "Ride of the Valkyrie")
The classical Bugs Bunny takeoffs have to be the best ever.
Requiem Mass, Mozart. Close second, Mass in C Minor, Mozart again.
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