The Classic Public Radio Battle
God bless Lois Reitzes, for she has an impossible job.
She is the program director of WABE, Atlanta’s NPR station, and her job is to save us from ourselves. How you ask? By preserving one of the few classical music stations left. There are fewer than 30 and they are falling by the wayside. People in Atlanta too want more NPR news programming and more popular music. They want stations such as WAMU or KCRW. However, if WABE goes all talk, there will be no FM classical music left inside the perimeter. We’ll lose this music in our lives and we won’t get it back. Talk of the Nation is important, but so it music from the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra! Mahler is important. It’s important to foster young classical music talent and without WABE, a chief way of exposing people to the music is gone.
Of course, there is room for improvement. There’s a huge movement to create string quartet versions of popular music and current writers have taken stabs at writing serious music. Attention should be paid and programmed on the local level. A local version of a funny classical music show would also be warrented. It could replace an hour of second cup or the 2 P.M. to 3 P.M. hour which currently has no identifyable theme. Having themed hours would certainly help. It would let audiences attach to a certain kind of music (sountracks, vocals, etc). However, all of this should come in re-arranging the local programming that already exists. The desire for the other programs provided is real. Losing ‘Weekend Radio‘, ‘Thistle and Shamrock‘, or ‘Says You‘ won’t do. It’s all in the creative arrangement of great music.
Of Course, the best solution would be for WABE to take over one of the AM stations that occassionally changes hands. That way, all of the news/talk programming could go onto AM and the FM could be reserved for classical music and jazz (btw. H. Johnson is the man. He’s the best DJ in the entire ATL!). It would take more money, which means that even a hint of radio donations being used to prop up the TV side would have to go away. It would also likely take a huge grant. Still it would be worth it. In the mean time, we’ll still be griping and nitpicking at Ms. Reitzes, but really, we need to pledge and help her stay the course.
June 13th, 2005 at 9:39 am
I grew up in Oklahoma City, and depending on the weather and what part of town you were in, you could get three public radio stations. One of them was devoted to classical music. The other two were NPR and played jazz during the rare times when they didn’t have news programming.
It amazes me that Atlanta–probably ten times the size of OKC now—has to struggle with this. Seems like getting the money to implement your AM/FM solution shouldn’t be a problem.
June 13th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
Atlanta’s radio situation is pretty bad, but just mirrors what’s going on in the rest of the country. Personally, I would like to see more talk, and more pop culture stuff as well. What I think is really sad is that this has to be an either/or thing. Most of Atlanta’s commercial FM stations are pretty crappy–one wishes that some of that bandwidth was available to be used for more NPR programming.
Perhaps when digital radio becomes widespread, we’ll have more feeds from WABE on the new, narrower frequencies.
June 13th, 2005 at 6:54 pm
I should point out that at least two other FM stations play classical music. WRAS 88.1 FM & WREK 91.1 FM (GSU’s station & Ga Tech’s station respectively, for those who may not know). Neither plays classical that much–Album 88 only 2 hours on Sunday morning, & WREK 2 hours every weekday morning.
It may not be much, but it’s better than nothing!
June 14th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
I’m sorry but I, and I suspect most of Atlanta, just doesn’t need “six continuous hours of uninterrupted classical music” every day. I rely on NPR for objective news reporting and creative intelligent progamming like “This American Life.” With all that chamber music filling up the schedule, I don’t get to hear those programs.
But with the GOP trying to slant NPR to the right, I may not be so enthralled with NPR news. See http://mediamatters.org/handsoff/pr_20050523.html
Also, I have to admit that after reading in Creative Loafing a couple of years ago that WABE is more than self sufficient and that pledge drives really only raise money for the Altanta Public School System, I haven’t pledged. Not that I don’t think giving money to APS is bad, I just don’t like the deceit. (I was paying significant property taxes to APS for the last several years so there was some love there.)
June 16th, 2005 at 11:47 pm
Good Public Radio? Hardly
Bloglanta: The Classic Public Radio Battle I’ve been in Atlanta for several years, but prior to that, I lived in St. Louis, with a kick-ass NPR affiliate. KWMU was one of the best NPR stations I’ve had the pleasure to…
March 14th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Yeah I gotta agree with Plasticnoodle there. Why should we be saving classic music on the radio? It’s free anywhere else. Libraries, online, other stations, you name it. NPR can bring us news, information, and entertainment developed and intended for public radio. You are dead wrong on this. We need programming, not classic music.