The classical station is dead...long live the classical station

[resqgeek]

As of yesterday, WGMS-FM, which has played classical music for the Washington, DC, radio market for 35 years, has changed its format to play music from the 1970's and 1980's. With the format, the station is acquiring a new identity as George 104 (WXGG-FM). That's the bad news for classical music fans.

The good news is that classical music will remain on the air. In an unusual partnership between for-profit and non-profit radio stations, Bonneville International, the company that owns WGMS/WXGG, and public radio station WETA reached a deal that allowed classical music to remain on the air, uninterrupted. Yesterday, WETA dropped its news/talk format and returned to the classical music format it dropped in 2005. Bonneville International donated WGMS's library of 18,000 classical music CDs to WETA along with the rights to use the "WGMS" call letters. Both stations will cross promote each other for about six months (in fact the old URLs for WGMS now redirect web browsers to WETA's website).

This transition comes on the heals of an attempt by Dan Snyder to purchase WGMS, which in turn appears to have caused Bonneville International to explore the format change.

[via The Washington Post]

Comments

[florafloraflora.livejournal.com]

I'm going to miss the Christmas music on WGMS. That was my favorite thing about that station, and I doubt WETA will keep up the tradition.

Backlash from longtime listeners

[(Anonymous)]

Go to the WETA FM Blog and read the backlash from WETA listeners to this extreme programming change. I expect thousands of people like me woke up this morning wondering what had happened to their morning dose of BBC and NPR Morning Edition while Bach tried to smooth their tempers. Overwhelmingly, listeners are against this change and are vocal about it. Many complain this change was taken without listener input or comment. Many are switching to WAMU and refusing further contributions to WETA. All in all, this seems to have been sprung upon an unsuspecting listening audience with the real winner being Bonneville International Corporation (Church of Later Day Saints). They, in effect, gave a commercially failing station to the public to foot the bill and get great publicity. One wonders just how much influence they will now have over WETA and how much less influence we the listening public will have.