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DC area loses last on-air local folk music show
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.
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.
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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.
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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.