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.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-01-23 01:59 am (UTC)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.