In past SNLC's, I've diaried the sleazebag deal, abetted by fundie bigots and one particular corrupt Republican, Kermit Brashear of Nebraska, that destroyed the only full-time classical music radio station in the 'Lou not quite 2 years ago, to make way for another "Christian rock" station that the region didn't need. This still rankles in the area, for once across party lines, as classical music has fans among both Democrats and Republicans in the area. The local NPR station has tried to fill the gap with 3 hours of classical on Saturday nights, but for a city with a terrific orchestra and a fairly lively classical scene, for its size, the lack of such a station is a huge bother.
However, at the risk of jinxing things, this may change semi-soon, per a recent report in the Post-Dispatch. More below the flip....
First, here are my past SNLC's on this subject:
(a) September 18, 2010
(b) May 21, 2011
(c) August 20, 2011
I pretty much piggy-backed on the work of the P-D's classical music critic, Sarah Bryan Miller, and I do so again here. Miller has this report from this past Wednesday:
"St. Louis could have a new classical radio station this summer, before the second anniversary of the silencing of the old one.
The Radio Arts Foundation-St. Louis, which provided considerable financial support to the old 'Classic99,' KFUO-FM, hopes to be on the air with a new FM station in early June, pending FCC approvals.
The new station, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation, will broadcast over a combination of regular analog radio, an HD-2 channel and live streaming over the Internet."
I'm cynical (read: bitter) enough about life to know that unless the deal is sealed, you don't talk about things like this in public. However, employing circular logic, presumably Miller and the
P-D wouldn't have reported this story if they didn't feel that the deal looked more than promising. Admittedly, there are questions to consider, like:
(1) Which position on the terrestrial FM dial will the station have? There aren't a huge number of open areas in this market, and I doubt that a middle-of-the-FM-band frequency will just suddenly switch over with a snap of the fingers.
(2) Revenue from advertising, especially if this is going to be a non-profit station, since, as the article notes:
"As a nonprofit, however, RAF can broadcast only 72 minutes of advertising per day."
(3) For nerds like me, will the putative new station's programming improve over KFUO's old programming? KFUO would do things like air a long symphony or concerto, but cut out the slow movement. My jaw dropped the first time I heard that done on the radio. Then it kept occuring, to my extreme displeasure.
It was only after getting to know the area for a while that I sort of "got" why, namely that this is not NYC or a European city that takes classical music seriously enough to take works in their totality, as well as include more demanding forms like chamber music which really require concentration. This touches on this quote from Jim Connett, the former program director at KFUO:
"Musically, Connett promised that RAF-STL will be an improvement over the old 'Top 100' model of endlessly cycling the same well-known works."
I certainly hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. But if nothing else, on this weekend that has, for those of one particular religion, the theme of resurrection, this is something nice to read. Whether this comes true or not, that's for down the line. Stay tuned.
With that, on this Easter/Passover weekend, and even if neither of those applies to you, time for the usual SNLC protocol, your loser stories of the week......