Radio Daze Revisited

If the little parody from last Friday isn't enough, it can be said here outright.

Public radio today is a joke, or certainly at risk thereof.

In Washington, WETA recently converted to an all-news format (well, mostly; they still keep Prairie Home Companion on Saturday nights). This is in addition to WAMU being nearly all news and talk already. Given that, the situation in Cincinnati, where WVXU converted to a news station so that WGUC can devote itself to classical music, is relatively tame. But it came at a cost. The management of WVXU explained: "Audiosyncracies was one of the most polarizing programs for listeners. While there were listeners who included it in their list of favorites, there were just as many, if not more, who listed as their least favorite."

This is particularly sad, as Cincinnati has a proud history of being a great radio town, especially for the Midwest. Fortunately, 'VXU still has some jazz and variety-show programming. The weekend lineup appears the most promising. And the city still has WNKU across the river in northern Kentucky, which still does a fair amount of folk and singer-songwriter programming last time I checked. (Somebody there get back to me on this.) Then there's WMKV, a station devoted to music of the Big Band era. Listening to them is like stepping into a time machine. Based out of the Maple Knolls retirement village, they even have veteran radio show hosts as occasional volunteers.

(The area also once had a station devoted entirely to Elvis music, WCVG. But that was about two or three format changes ago. Needless to say, it was based out out my hometown of Milford.)

Meanwhile, the Nation's capital has no non-commercial classical music station. The closest one is WBJC in Baltimore, which is hard to get on my side of the Potomac. There is still a commerical classical station, and one has to risk having Chopin's Noctures interrupted by... you guessed it. Fortunately, some of WETA's expatriates such as Robert Aubry Davis and Michael Goldsmith can still be heard on XM Radio, one of two satellite radio services available in the USA. I have them in my car, and recently got a receiver for my home.

That's how much I hate commercials.