WCRB Ad In BSO Program

[Shellanswerman]

Last night (02/04) I went to my first Boston Symphony Orchestra (hereinafter referred to as the 'BSO') concert since the announcement of the WCRB sale. It was a heavy-metal concert (Mahler's Sixth Symphony...if the teenager from New Bedford were into THIS heavy metal, he'd still be in school, alive, and two other people would also be alive), and as usual, each patron receives a booklet prepared by the BSO full of articles and ads. One full-page ad was for WCRB, and anyone perusing it would think nothing had changed at the South Street Snoozer. They promoted themselves as the source of all things BSO 52-weeks-a-year: the full winter season; the Holiday Pops; the spring Pops; Tanglewood and BSO recordings in-between. Hmmm...the BSO season ends in April; will WCRB retain its call-letters and format to beyond the spring Pops season? I guess Charles River (the broadcasters, not the Lab Rat people) figures they might as well keep running the same ad; they keep playing the same music over-and-over...and the sale COULD fall through. On another page, there was a picture of William Campbell, who apparently is out as chief sales weasel, replaced by an interim "manager". His picture is next to a blurb claiming the WCRB BSO broadcasts reach "over half-a-million listeners every Saturday". Ooops...a Globe article in January stated that WCRB reaches about 400,000 audience members (nobody actually LISTENS to WCRB except for the BSO broadcasts; its principal function is to provide soothing background music in offices and when people are placed on-hold...if Greater Media switches it to "Smooth Jazz', whatever that is, then essentially not much will have changed). How can the station reach only 400,000 people in a week, and over half-a-million each Saturday (meaning one-eighth of the Metro market on a light-listening daypart?). It's a lot like the argument among some cosmologists who aver that the Universe is 14-billion years old, but the Hubble telescope has spotted galazies 15-billion light years away!