WABE Ludites!
WABE’s HD Radio News Stream is off the air. There is nothing in their website about this problem and it’s been off for several weeks. This is a troubling development. Ultimately, in a battle between news coverage and classical music, the news is going to win, but having an HD channel specifically for it was a great compromise.
Perhaps new staff have determined that the news broadcast was not important to members, but they’re wrong and the decision will come back to haunt them. They may also be fighting other fires.
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting published a study which showed that WABE is among the least diverse stations in the country. With a listening audience that is very diverse, having only one daily host who is not white and no regular news and information programming focusing on the city itself is perhaps of more immediate attention.
Still, as the comments to various posts here have shown, people want the news and cutting off the HD stream is not going to help. WABE should return it to air as soon as possible.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Did the new royalty scheme for web streaming get implemented? I assumed it had, but haven’t checked in since very close to the implementation date. If so, the increased financial drain may have prompted a shutdown.
August 29th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Never mind; reading failure on my part.
August 29th, 2007 at 11:31 am
“Perhaps new staff have determined that the news broadcast was not important to members, but they’re wrong and the decision will come back to haunt them.”
Perhaps, they finally realized that only a handful are listening with HD radios, and that HD Radio is failing from lack of consumer interest:
http://hdradiofarce.blogspot.com/
August 31st, 2007 at 5:47 pm
I purchased an HD radio for my old car, but it would have been too much of a pain to install in my new vehicle. And honestly, it’s kind of lame to expect everyone to have to go out & buy expensive new radios (and rip up our cars) just so we can have the same decent kind of NPR station that other large cities have.
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:44 pm
The WABE Fall fund drive is coming and I’m already nauseous. The station has made some strides with Steve Goss as news anchor and the Beltline series, but it’s sad to hear that the HD stream didn’t work.
For anybody who wants to hear how a public fund drive CAN be done well, CAN build community, and raise the money, give a listen to WAMC, northeast public radio. They’re doing their drive now and are in the 2nd day. It’s almost a pleasure to listen to, a true community event. They raised $300,000 in 4 days last Spring!
-Nina