Time for National Private Radio (The death of classical music on Washington's NPR station)

The Weekly Standard ^ | February 28, 2005 | Andrew Ferguson, for the Editors

[axes_of_weezles]

Defund them and auction their spectrum if they fail to be commercial successes.
Especially if all they are doing is parroting socialist news.

[Smogger]

Thank god I live in in a place with a station like KUSC, a station with hosts who actually know something about he music they play.

I agree with you. In fact I just pledged $120 bucks to KUSC last week. We ARE lucky to live someplace with a good classical station.

But I disagree that it's not a great loss for people that live in places where there is no other classical stations. I agree with that author that the preservation and promotion of classical music and the arts IS a good unto itself.

[curmudgeonII]

The reason that I never donate to NPR is that they use whatever funds come in to buy more talk shows and eliminate the music. Other than the Car Talk brothers there is not a talk show on NPR worth listening to.
And I need not mention the left wing bias of every one of the talk shows.

[Drango]

I agree with that author that the preservation and promotion of classical music and the arts IS a good unto itself.

I'll bite...is a good that you want me to pay for?

[gogipper]

Its amazing that commercial classical stations survive when they have to compete against subsidized channels. We listen more frequently to our commercial station because the music is more frequently light classical

[IronJack]

Holy mackerel! Even OMAHA has a classical station, and a good one! (shameless plug for KVNO 90.7 FM or KVNO.org)

[Grut]

QXR is still on the air. I just turned it on.

FM, yes: but WQXR-AM was taken off the air maybe ten years ago and it's combination of classical music and New York City style was a (nightime) breath of urbanity to people up and down the East Coast.

[cyborg]

Ah I see... yeah there are no classical stations or oldies anymore on AM. Caribbean and spanish barely squeak by late at night, and I mean LATE *lol*

[Grut]

Gahhh! "it's" = its.

[ladyjane]

Omaha has classical music! Great. Here in Boston we have some but very little opera. The Harvard station is quite good but their football games bump the opera program and their range is only about 2 miles from Harvard Square. Forget about WGBH and WBUR - our public radio stations. Can't listen to Nina Choke-your-words!

[philo]

http://www.current.org/stream/ Here are some more Public Radio links

[IronJack]

Nina Totenbag? Arrrrrgh. She'd be enough to make me listen to the (c)rap station. Well ... maybe not ...

[kennyo]

Classical music has got to go!Apparently tonal music that has resolution is patriarchal.

[q_an_a]

what about 103.5 WGMS? It has classical music. Do we really need commercial free radio paid for by tax payers?

[kennyo]

Consider this quote from Professor Susan McClary, a musicologist, on Beethoven's ninth symphony: "The point of recapitulation in the first movement of the ninth is one of the most horrifying in music, as the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, drumming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release.-http://www.eunacom.net/publ_003.htm

Classical music is no longer PC.

[Cornpone]

That's what I listen to, 103.5, but I think it is part of WETA. WETA has a number of broadcast call letters for various towers to cover the region I think. And I don't think 103.5 has commercials.

[atomic conspiracy]

"Does the constitution even suggest that government should fund propaganda?"

I think at the very least it shouldn't fund enemy propaganda.

[perfect stranger]

RadioValc Classic.

[Smogger]

As opposed to what? Paying for news?

[GOPJ]

NPR lies about not having advertisers? They're dumping classical music for nonstop liberal propaganda? And on my dime? Damn.

According to their conventional wisdom--though whether it's wisdom or merely convention has yet to be determined--news and chat inevitably bring in more listeners, and more affluent listeners, than classical music or jazz. And affluent listeners draw higher-class advertisers (called "underwriters" in the painstaking lexicon of public broadcasting) and respond more generously during pledge drives.