> > From
> http://www.boston.com/business/articl>
> es/2005/10/29/biogen_revises_warning_label_for_cancer_drug/:
>
> >
> > Woody Tanger is offering "substantially more than $50
> > million" to Charles River Broadcasting for WCRB and "its
> > sister stations".
> >
> Many people posting opinions on WCRB, its history and future
> (if any), don't know much about classical music. They
> regard it as just a radio station format, but the entity
> itself exists outside of and far transcends radio. WCRB has
> been a very, very BAD "classical music" station for over a
> decade now. In other markets, at least one similar in size
> and makeup to Boston, i.e. Seattle,
> there are commercial stations that do a far better job. At
> this point, no full-signal "classical" FM is worse than
> WCRB; the South Street snoozer can be mentioned in the same
> breath with Washington, DC's WGMS and San Francisco's KDFC,
> both equally dreadful. The question is, if WCRB or a
> successor station discontinued the kind of watered-down,
> dumbed-down "classical music" for another format entirely,
> could non-comm WGBH-FM do a 180 and ADD hours of classical,
> including SOME nighttimes? Let's say jazz could continue
> as-is Monday, Wednesday and Friday, but WGBH then could run
> recorded classical music of high-quality, including and
> especially new releases to give them the proper coverage, on
> Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursday evenings (jazz could stay
> overnight) plus the Metroplitan Opera on Saturdays. There's
> already a possible precedent for this...I just received the
> new WGBH members magazine, and on Friday, November 11th,
> that evening's jazz will be pre-empted for a live concert by
> a choral group called the Cantata Singers. I don't know if
> WGBH-FM is doing this for the whole Cantata Singers season
> or just the November 11th concert because the piece being
> performed, Verdi's "Manzoni Requiem", is so incredibly
> popular (WCRB never plays it). Ok, all of this is just
> speculation (something that never happens on the radio-info
> Boston board)until a sale is or is not consummated, but it's
> one reasonable possibility if WCRB goes away.
>
Well, if the classical format were to move to an HD Radio subchannel, which would be audible only to those who spent the money to buy not merely HD Radios but HD Radios capable of receiving the sub-channels, the listenership would be resticted to a very small and presumably elite coterie of snobs, such as yourself. For such a group, the broad-appeal classical programming would probably not be appropriate. Instead, you'd be likely to be treated to such stuff as full-length performances of Wozzek--or maybe even the complete, unexpurgated works of Alben Berg. Since you would probably be the only listener, WCRB might even engage you to program the sub-channel! If the signal should ever receive as much as a 0.1 share, you'd know you were failing and I'm sure you could find something even more esoteric--perhaps so esoteric that even you wouldn't listen. Then you'd KNOW you had succeeded. Hey, here's an idea: why don't you buy an iPod and fill the hard drive with the complete, unexpurgated works of Alben Berg and the like? Listen to you heart's content! Knock yourself out! Just spare us from your elitist claptrap. Since you already KNOW how much better you are than the rest of us, why must you keep sharing?
