December 1, the day folk and blues on Boston "public" radio died

[notlob]

December 1, 2011 is the second anniversary of the black day in 2009 that "public" radio WGBH management terminated "Folk on WGBH" and "Blues on WGBH", betraying members of those communities who had for years supported the programs, many at the "Folk Club" level. You can read more in my blog - http://notlobmusic.blogspot.com/2009/11/wgbh-drops-folk-and-blues-programs.html

"Supporters of Folk and Blues on WGBH" - https://www.facebook.com/groups/201481030324/ - an open Facebook group, was created a few weeks before the plug was pulled. It continues, containing much useful information about members’ efforts to save the programs.

Jim Kweskin was an early supporter of "Supporters of Folk and Blues on WGBH". Here are his words, used with permission.

"I can only assume this has something to do with the almighty dollar. Isn't this supposed to be public radio and aren't we the public. Folk music has been a mainstay on WGBH for as long as I can remember. Acoustic artists are as popular as ever and in some ways even more popular then in days gone by. I don't get it. WGBH should be ashamed of itself. Well, as Ma Joad said, "We're the people and you can't stop us and you can't lick us. We just keep coming, 'cause we're the people."
- Jim Kweskin, November 11, 2009.

 

[raccoonradio]

Same kind of thing happened in Pittsburgh with the sale of WDUQ and the new owners taking jazz/blues programming from 100 hrs/wk down to 6 hrs. Just before a casual outdoor show I attended with a Pitt.
blues band I know, at a park in that area, I mentioned it to someone in the band who hadn't heard the news (it was a couple days before the switch). A woman who ran the Pittsburgh Blues Society nodded
and said it was true; "well, at least we'll still have Triple E's" she said, referring to a downtown jazz club.
There is still some blues and folk on the air but at stations with significantly less power (this Sun. for example I'll be playing it on a 130 watt powerhouse in Salem...)

What's interesting is: suppose WGBH hadn't bought WCRB...suppose that station went to a different owner
who kept it classical, and suppose WGBH had the opportunity to buy another station. Maybe they could have put the folk/blues/jazz programming there. Their first priority was the news/talk programming and
by buying WCRB their second priority, the classical, got taken care of.
Obviously the purchase of WCRB enabled WGBH to go ahead with their news/talk challenge to WBUR,
and dumping the folk and blues shows (could they have found room for them?) was part of it too.

Looking back at the late 2009 period, the purchase of WCRB was WGBH playing the hero in "keeping
classical music alive". As for folk or blues fans, well, their TV outlet DOES have occasional shows
like "Give Me The Banjo"...otherwise...

And admittedly I don't really listen to WUMB but many folk fans feel it isn't "real" folk, more like AAA. (I do note after paying a quick visit to their site: "Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks Live in Studio" tomorrow).
Wikipedia describes WUMB's format as "Folk/Adult Album Alternative".

I play Dan Hicks, too (incl. his recent album from '09...)

 

[aaronread]

And admittedly I don't really listen to WUMB but many folk fans feel it isn't "real" folk, more like AAA.

I haven't lived in Boston in a few years, so I haven't listened to WUMB in a while...but do they still identify as a folkstation on their airwaves? I thought that branding was dropped a while ago. It's certainly not on their website, at least not on the homepage.

 

[4CX1000A]

What's interesting is: suppose WGBH hadn't bought WCRB...suppose that station went to a different owner
who kept it classical, and suppose WGBH had the opportunity to buy another station. Maybe they could have put the folk/blues/jazz programming there. Their first priority was the news/talk programming and
by buying WCRB their second priority, the classical, got taken care of.

WGBH was the only buyer that would have kept WCRB classical. I was told that the runner-up in the bidding was Entercom, and I suspect if they'd bought it, 99.5 would now be WEEI-FM.

As for WGBH, they clearly couldn't be all things to all people. They needed to narrow their format to better serve their audience. Blues programming can be found early Saturday and Sunday mornings on WHRB, a station which can afford a wider programming spectrum because WHRB is all-volunteer. In general, the more diverse a station's programming, the smaller is its audience. The growth in WGBH's audience since it narrowed its format is a perfect illustration of this tendency.

 

[raccoonradio]

Interesting about Entercom!

Yes the main page of the WUMB site doesn't seem to feature that four letter word starting with F (no,
not THAT one! I know of one station that had a show called "Folk 'n' Good Music Show"...careful how
you say that!) Wikipedia's entry on them has the old logo though with the words "Folk Radio" prominent.

WKSU at Kent State has had a good folk music show (Jim Blum) going for awhile, but the word Folk isn't
directly mentioned in their slogan: "NPR. Classical. Other Smart Stuff." (WGBH for awhile had "Classical,
jazz, folk and news"--my own version of that was "classical, jazz, f---in' blues" )

 

[fybush]

WKSU at Kent State has had a good folk music show (Jim Blum) going for awhile, but the word Folk isn't
directly mentioned in their slogan: "NPR. Classical. Other Smart Stuff." (WGBH for awhile had "Classical,
jazz, folk and news"--my own version of that was "classical, jazz, f---in' blues" )

The reason WKSU doesn't play up "folk" in their main-channel branding is that they've created a separate 24-hour service that's all folk, with Jim Blum programming the music.

Folk Alley (http://www.folkalley.com/) is promoted mainly as a streaming service (including on a very good smartphone app that's become one of my favorites), but it's also on one of WKSU's HD subchannels across northeast Ohio.

 

[CTListener]

WKSU at Kent State has had a good folk music show (Jim Blum) going for awhile, but the word Folk isn't
directly mentioned in their slogan: "NPR. Classical. Other Smart Stuff." (WGBH for awhile had "Classical,
jazz, folk and news"--my own version of that was "classical, jazz, f---in' blues" )

The reason WKSU doesn't play up "folk" in their main-channel branding is that they've created a separate 24-hour service that's all folk, with Jim Blum programming the music.

Folk Alley (http://www.folkalley.com/) is promoted mainly as a streaming service (including on a very good smartphone app that's become one of my favorites), but it's also on one of WKSU's HD subchannels across northeast Ohio.

Folk Alley is also heard on XM (but not Sirius) satellite radio on The Village, Channel 62. This is one of two remaining XM-only music channels (the other being The Groove (mostly late '70s and '80s r&b) and is probably going to be eliminated before too long as management tries to make the services indistinguishable and consolidate the monopoly, but it's still around for the time being.

 

[kc1ih]

Folk Alley is also heard on XM (but not Sirius) satellite radio on The Village, Channel 62. This is one of two remaining XM-only music channels (the other being The Groove (mostly late '70s and '80s r&b) and is probably going to be eliminated before too long as management tries to make the services indistinguishable and consolidate the monopoly, but it's still around for the time being.

Do you have a source for this (the two channels supposedly being dropped), or is this just conjecture on your part?

 

[CTListener]

Folk Alley is also heard on XM (but not Sirius) satellite radio on The Village, Channel 62. This is one of two remaining XM-only music channels (the other being The Groove (mostly late '70s and '80s r&b) and is probably going to be eliminated before too long as management tries to make the services indistinguishable and consolidate the monopoly, but it's still around for the time being.

Do you have a source for this (the two channels supposedly being dropped), or is this just conjecture on your part?

Conjecture, but they dropped Cinemagic, another XM-only channel, the last time they had a bandwidth crunch.