I must tell you that I was shocked to read this story. After protests, a radio station has decided to keep its classical music format. In Provo, Utah, no less.
BYU Broadcasting has announced that it will buy an FM signal that will allow it to broadcast a bunch of educational content it planned to stuff into Classical 89/KBYU-FM, presumably obliterating the latter’s popular classical music offerings. You can read the narcoleptic coma inducing deets about the deal here. The bottom line is that the outfit will purchase another radio outlet and to that signal will stream BYU, aka Brigham Young University, fare. This move will save Classical 89/KBYU’s classical schedule.
The Salt Lake Tribune‘s Scott D. Pierce has a nice piece on the protests on behalf of Classical 89. “My wife loves it,” one fan exclaimed at a meeting. “She says, when we leave the home, ’Leave it on, because the plants love it, too’.”
To which I usually say ‘yeah yeah, good luck with this.’ Most radio station managements almost never renege on a format change after they announce it. Protests be damned. “We have to be realistic,” they always declare, stone faced, at The Big Meeting. “Times have changed. Plus: blah blah blah and here’s a lawyer and engineer to explain why you are screwed.”
I’ve even mapped out the process as the Five Stages of Format Change Grief.
But this time they actually listened to the listeners. I’ll be damned.
And not only that, but Colorado Public Radio is expanding its signal to reach northward along the Front Range. It appears that the operation will consolidate two towers into one more reliable transmitter on Lookout Mountain.
These excellent developments deprive me of my usual grumpiness about the state of classical music radio, but I think that I can live with that.
