The world famous WHFS progresive rock station for the Washington-Baltimore area is
gone:
In a shocking move, Infinity has converted 20-year modern rock bastion WHFS Washington, D.C., to Spanish as "El Zol" 99.1. The station will play a mixture of Salsa, Merengue and Bachata, targeting adults 25-54.
[...]
WHFS became one of the country's original free-form progressive rock stations in the mid-to-late '60s, evolving to modern rock in the mid-'80s. It spawned the HFStival, the grand-daddy of station festivals and a perennial summer concert box-office leader.
WHFS was a wonderful independent station known for its edgy characteristics. Way before I was born it was a station created by pretty much regular people and one where the DJs actually picked the songs themselves. By the time I started listening when I was in 7th grade (I'm 20 now) (after one of the other two local rock stations was bought and turned into an Oldies station) it was still edgy even though it had more professional owners and was known for doing things like premiering music before it was officially released (they were kind of legal rebels).
Since it was aquired by Infinity Radio during the media consolidations allowed under the the Clinton FCC (and which the Bush FCC tried to further allow), its quality started to go down hill. But it was still a good station and I enjoyed lsitening to it. it had fallen in the ratings, but that was most likely due to the straight jacket their corporate owners imposed on them.
And now today, at noon with no warning the station suddenly switched to a Spanish language station. Infinity had no courtesy to tell its loyal WHFS listeners about the change beforehand and gave no explanation to WHFS listeners. Media consolidation is destroying the diversity of news, entertainment (and increasingly filthifying it), and music that this country once had.
It's probably busy, but feel free to call Infitiny Radio and let them know that you find their corporate stiffling of creativity appaling and their way of dumping on their loyal listeners to be completely and utterly rude.
INFINITY BROADCASTING
1515 Broadway, 46th Floor
New York, NY 10036
212-846-3939