• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Classical Music Programming

B

b-turner

I know so very little about the format but I have tried to educat myself on the eras, the composers and such. I'll print out 24 hour playlists as long as it's not syndicated.

I have noticed there is, for lack of a better term, top 40 in classical.

What I'd love to learn from a person who has programmed classical radio, is what might be a good ratio of those 'top 40' and the more or less discovery or second tier.

I realize drive times tend to be shorter works and movements. I notice more romantic and orchestral than baroque and virtually none of works, say, by solo harpsichord, harp, flute and such.

How quickly might that all time favories repeat?
 
Some classical stations will try to put together a 'top 40' based on listener inputs to run during holidays typically. Non-comms program a lot of 'top 40' short works during pledge drives. Remembering that a classical station has 400 years worth of music, it is amazing how often recognizable pieces repeat. Typically one recognizable piece per hour. Baroque, choral, and opera usually have their own blocks (if the station wants to do it). Modern classical seems to be played in the mid to late afternoon. Unless you are breaking long works up into smaller chunks (e.g. the four movements of a symphony), it is difficult to program a single hour.
 
When I programmed classical on my second independent FM in Ecuador in the later 60's, I tried to be very conventional. In other words, mostly symphony orchestras, no 20th Century, very little piano concertos, and great care with baroque. I tried to envision today's listener in Quito versus the listener to a concert when those works were composed. Different exposure to other kinds of music, and most who enjoyed classical preferred overwhelmingly the "big orchestras"

I did not run an educational station; it was commercial (with embassy paid programs until 5 PM) and classical till midnight. I did not think in "hours" but in the entire evening as an event when I pulled the albums to lay out for the board op who ran the station at night.
 
The advantage of not having to program in hour blocks was the announcer in Massachusetts who said (on a day devoted to Spanish classical) "We are now going to play the greatest piece of Spanish music ever written, in French, by a Frenchman" and went off to play Carmen (about 3 hours).
 


Back
Top Bottom