DC area loses last on-air local folk music show

[acroyear]

With WAMU dropping its folk-bluegrass lineup a few years ago, and WETA's change today, there is now no outlet for folk music on the radio at all.

WETA's Mary Cliff, who had a long-running (over 32 years) show on Saturdays called "Traditions" has been let go, like every other WETA on-air employee, as part of the sudden shift to Classical.

Comments

[meapet.livejournal.com]

And as per usual for most of the local radio stations, we don't hear anything about it.
GRRRRR

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Nobody heard about it, least of all Mary.

Really, the WETA side of this was only hinted at, but really, nobody at WETA knew it was going to happen until today (hence the reason nobody's shows got decent send-offs).

There was a "rush-factor" on this that really confuses me. Normally, a format change takes a month or more from commitment to actualization. This was done within 24 hours with NOBODY knowing it was final until this morning (some learning it from the paper, I'm sure).

[wilhelmina-d.livejournal.com]

That's so awful. I loved that show. I also hate the move. Why do they mess with this stuff?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

money.

[meapet.livejournal.com]

I'll quote my friend Vince "Another reason to hate Dan Snyder"

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Thanks to Snyder's insistence (and then backing down), 104.1 was effectively overpriced.

But really, now that everybody is owned by a public company on Wall Street, everybody is subject to Wall Street Expectations. Its not enough to be hugely profitable (which classical music easily can be, since their are far fewer royalty rates to pay over contemporary music - most of the music is "trad"). Not even $19 million profit a year (some pop stations will kill for that rate, though I've not seen that number verified).

One must have ever-increasing profits. Classical music is doomed to never fit that. Costs of people, costs of license, reduction of listeners, reduction of listener value (advertisers don't advertise well to "old" people) - it all means that classical music is a forever-losing format. WGMS only got to where it did by being the only one in the area (with WETA dropping its classical lineup 2 years ago - being unable to compete).

In short, it got as profitable as it was ever going to, and Bonneville's attitude is to drop it before it drops itself.

Like any public company.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Which is why blaming Dan Snyder for this one is pretty much blaming the symptom, and not the actual disease.

Fact is, Snyder wouldn't have been interested in it if it wasn't up for sale in the first place, not to mention that the station already got moved off of one frequency.

[fiona64.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing you don't get the "Thistle & Shamrock" show there, either. We get it on a local independent station, but the broadcast signal is about three feet from the transmitter. :-/

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

T&S has been on 88.5 WAMU for years. Its one of the few things that survived WAMU dropping the folk/bluegrass format in the non-rush-hour times.

And 88.5 is one of of those abusive transmitters in the area, bleeding badly into 88.3 and 88.7 even from the 25 mile distance from the transmitter.

[johnbroadfoot.livejournal.com]

There used to be blues program, all day Saturday (I think) on one of your local college stations. Do you know if it's still on, or anything else about it?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

i know nothing of it at all. blues ain't my thing.