WRR

[Mediafrog+]

Look at how many big markets have seen commercial classcial disappear from FM in recent years: NYC, LA, Philadelphia, Detroit, Miami, Denver, Phoenix, Seattle, Houston, Washington D.C., St. Louis, to name a few...and most recently San Francisco.

You know your radio markets, froggy.
We know about just under half of those you listed, but we are confused ???
What is wrong with a classical station going to a listener supported base?
The signal coverage was reduced in some markets, increased in some, and remained static in others.
As for the sponsors, enhanced underwritting seems to be getting more and more enhanced every year.
As a listener, we would rather be told about a product or service than what we should go and do.
We like what KING did: same frequency, same signal, listener supported.

First of all, to clear things up, I am a Classical fan (amongst other musical genres.) And there is no problem with Classical going to non-commercial, listener funded stations. Here in Houston, for example, we just saw the launch in May of KUHA, a fulltime Classical outlet run by the University of Houston.

My points have been that demographic change, listener preferences, and shifting business models do not favor the survival of Classical as a commercial radio format. If the future of the format is non-comm, then more power to it. 8)

 

[Mediafrog+]

As a former sales person at WRR I have 1 suggestion, that would boost there numbers a litte. That is use some processing. It is full 100k station but it has pops and hisses even with a goof car radio ( yes I know the arguments on the integrity of the music.

This is a longstanding issue with Classical. The "purists" want huge dynamic range. Problem is, that assumes an ideal delivery method as well as an acoustically perfect listening environment, neither of which is (for the most part) practical on FM radio. Real world listening environments are imperfect with external noise. And analog FM has its shortcomings.

There needs to be some degree of processing to overcome those issues. For instance, in a car, a listener should not have to constantly adjust the volume in order to hear all the music. And spoken word material has to be the same general level as the music. I'm not asking for CHR ultra compression, but Classical needs to cut through the noise. Very few people have an acoustically engineered listening setup.

 

[w9wi]

This is a longstanding issue with Classical. The "purists" want huge dynamic range. Problem is, that assumes an ideal delivery method as well as an acoustically perfect listening environment, neither of which is (for the most part) practical on FM radio. Real world listening environments are imperfect with external noise. And analog FM has its shortcomings.

I continue to be amazed there has been nothing done to allow receivers to "undo" the processing.

Once the audio has been successfully delivered to the receiver, much of the need for processing is gone. If the receiver knew what had been done at the transmitter, much if not all of it could be undone, restoring the characteristics of the original programming.

The receiver could allow for varying degrees of "undoing", so that if you were using the receiver in a noisy environment (i.e., a car) you could leave some or all of the processing in place; in a quiet room you could get rid of most of it.

The processing settings could be transmitted as data, either through some sort of ancillary data facility on RDS, or through the PAD facility of HD. They don't change that often.

I acknowledge some stations consider their processing settings a top secret. Many stations would choose to not transmit this data. Stations like WRR and many NPR outlets might well be quite willing to transmit it.

 

[copydesk2]

http://www.king.org/

 

[Ai4i]

AM music stations needed processing the most, less for FM stations, and least for digital stations.
We had a receiver with a basic simple cheap compression circuit ganged to the variable loudness control, usually an on/off switch, a few years back, not more than a gimick at the time, but the idea really should have cought on for listening in noisy environments. We all raise the volume when we enter a highway and lower it when exiting it without even thinking.

 

[fybush]

We like what KING did: same frequency, same signal, listener supported.

That was indeed an elegant solution, but also a unique one: even as a fully commercial station, KING-FM hadn't faced the same financial pressures as most commercial stations, having been supported by the very wealthy Bullitt sisters who were making money hand over fist at KING-TV and KING(AM). When they sold King Broadcasting, they had the financial wherewithal to give 98.1 as a gift to the community, initially as a commercial station with proceeds spinning off to benefit several cultural institutions and now as a nonprofit, noncommercial operation.

In most other cases, there's been an ownership group that has sought to recapture the underlying value of the big-signal commercial license, whether that was the NY Times (WQXR) or Marlin (WTMI, WFLN, WQRS) or the Jones family interests (WCRB) or the Missouri Synod Lutherans (KFUO-FM). That was not the case in Seattle.

 

[nuffsaid]

Lots of talk about WRR here and most is / was constructive. We seem to forget that WRR is controlled by city government and we all know what happens when "politics" come into the picture. WRR is currently searching for a new GM and it is my opinion this person may have an uphill battle on his/her hands. If you spend any time with the presentation you'll hear so many mistakes that would not be expected on a major market radio station. I understand that "personality" radio is not the focus here but professionalism and a major market presentation is yet another thing. I recently spend a few hours with the morning show and was very surprised at the presentation. There were many programming elements missing but news was almost a headline delivery with no "news presence". One of their objectives in the job search is a person who can push them past the 2.8 (gross) revenue base. A station in the Dallas market with this kind of billing must be working part time. Just some thoughts from an outsiders looking in!