scades wrote:

Romy--I guess I don't know where to start without giving offense. Forgive me if I start back too far. NPR, WGBH, WBUR, etc. are all independent entities--separately incorporated and managed. WGBH and WBUR are local instances of stations all around the US, many of which got started as "educational radio," long before NPR was founded. NPR was founded by the station managers of a number of these stations to provide, first, news. (The first NPR program was All Things Considered.) NPR has four funding streams: Some (but very little) federal money, foundation support, "underwriters" (sponsors), and most importantly, fees charged for each program picked up by a local station, pro-rated by audience size.WGBH and WBUR are "Boston's NPR station(s)" in that they are the sole NPR broadcasters in the area, and that their NPR programs (All things Considered; Morning Edition; Car Talk; Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me; etc.) are the centerpieces of their programming. Of these, all but the news magazines are produced by local stations, for whom NPR offers syndication. WGBH, as a member station, has some input into NPR decisions, but the converse is not true; NPR has no say about WGBH's operations. There are other important syndicators that "feed" WGBH and WBUR: Minnesota Public Radio provides Prairie Home Companion, and Public Radio International provides BBC Worldwide in the US.--scades

scades wrote:

So, who do you want to push on? WGBH Radio's management. Go to , and take your pick to express your concerns. Personally, I'm puzzled by people's outrage. If they are complaining about WGBH's getting rid of jazz, folk, etc--that I understand. But if the issue is classical music, WCRB broadcast a sort of top-40, "classics light" stream that drove me nuts--aside from the BSO Friday afternoon broadcast). (In Maine, we're still stuck with it on WBACH, without ever having the BSO broadcast.) Looks to me like “the new 99.5" is a pretty serious classical broadcaster. Isn't that a good thing? --scades (Written,by the way with our old cat, Miss Kitty, asleep on my lap.)

clarkjohnsen wrote:

At any rate I've already heard two pre-recorded DJ programs on CRB repeated later, both originating from other sources, as well as numerous waltzes and other super-lightweight material reminiscent of the old CRB. And they still play mere movements from whole works. Feh! They have plenty of room for Friday at Symphony if the will is there.

Boston Musical Intelligencer will be presenting a panel discussion at Old South Church, Copley Square, Tuesday, January 5, 6:00 to 7:30 pm. The panel intends to address the overwhelming response of dismay at the diminution of classical music programming in the greater Boston area.
Moderator: William M. Bulger, former Massachusetts Senate President and President, University of Massachusetts, board member of the Boston Public Library and Boston Symphony Orchestra

Panelists: Richard Dyer, former classical music critic, The Boston Globe; Christopher Lydon, Radio Talk Host; Dave MacNeill, for many decades announcer, then general manager at the old WCRB; and John Voci, general manager, WGBH

Respondents: reviewers for The Boston Musical Intelligencer: Mark DeVoto, John W. Ehrlich, Brian Jones, Peter Van Zandt Lane, Tom Schnauber.

http://classical-scene.com/2009/12/24/anything-we-can-do-for-classical-music-radio-in-boston/

The Issues:

Today Joe Whipple have posted a message in the Intelligencer board:

http://classical-scene.com/2009/12/10/wgbh-to-discontinue-bso-friday-afternoon-broadcasts/

I would like to re-print the Joe’s post:

Somehow, I had missed the article in the December 18 Boston Globe which verified the dropping of the Friday afternoon BSO broadcasts. Yesterday I got a letter from Mary Toropov at WGBH confirming my ongoing status as a Sustainer and a member of the “Leadership Circle.” Here’s my reply.

“Dear Ms. Toropov:

Thank you for confirming that my status as a Sustainer and a member of the Leadership Circle is continuing. However it is in jeopardy.

Somehow, I missed the article in the December 18 Boston Globe in which it was stated that WCRB would not continue the Friday afternoon BSO broadcasts. This is outrageous. As I stated in feedback in November, there are audience members like me who can listen on Friday afternoons but not on Saturday evenings. Some of us use it to rehear the concert of the previous evening; some to preview the following evening’s concert; some as their only opportunity to hear a given program; and some because they want to hear the BSO as much as possible. At the time, I got a reply which implied that the only issue was obtaining broadcast rights. But clearly there has been a decision to abandon me and the other members of the audience who relied in one way or another on those broadcasts.

Mr. Voci indicated that he considered the two live broadcasts in very different time slots ‘duplicative’ and has sent a letter to the Globe in which he claims, ‘As audiences listen to us, we’ll listen to them.’ Well, I want some evidence that he’s listening to the audience. How many audience members asked to have the Friday Symphony [broadcasts] dropped? How many have asked to have them continued? (Please don’t send me patronizing generalities. Please answer the questions.)

Mr. Voci also tried to justify the decision by pointing to broadcasts from Tanglewood and to BSO-related broadcasts on non-concert Saturday evenings. But for years all three weekend Tanglewood concerts have been broadcast on one or both stations, and WCRB has regularly broadcast BSO performances on non-concert Saturdays (”fantasy concerts” they used to call them). So neither represents an increase in BSO availability for the audience, and therefore neither justifies dropping Friday afternoon concerts. Mr. Voci must think we’re either stupid or without memory if he thinks we’ll fall for that nonsense.

At this point I am angry enough at the disregard for 58 years of tradition and lack of concern for the audience that I am seriously considering discontinuing my support. Certainly I must reduce it as it seems that management cares about nothing but money, and therefore the only thing that will tell them they made a big mistake is having it cost them money. But if the decision is promptly reversed I shall continue support at the current level. And if Mr. Voci soon leaves WGBH, willingly or unwillingly, I shall increase my level of giving.

Sincerely,”

Comment by Joe Whipple — January 1, 2010

http://classical-scene.com/2010/01/06/wgbh-wcrb-panel-discussion-great-success/

I would disagree and would hardly be calling the WGBH Panel Discussion a “great success”. In fact I am calling the event as “great disappointment”. Sure, the Intelligencer put effort in the game, thanks for that, but we judge value of the events not by fact of events but by QUALITY OF EVENTS. Was the Panel Discussion a quality event? Absolutely not!

The only quality factor during the entire event was a voice of passion coming from few hundred visitors and a few dozens of folks who come to microphone to went disappointment.  What WGBH in the face of Mr. Voci offered in response? A bunch of demagogy and sub-sophomoric comprehending the subjects of public concerns! Very productive! It very much not the subject of person animosity to Mr. Voci, in fact I do appreciate that Mr. Voci had courage to show up at the meeting. However the numb, indifferent and partially deceptive reaction by Mr. Voci to the most important subjects brought to the panel did indicate the unfortunate strategic WGBH direction and this ugly direction was foggy expressed.

The Intelligencer fancies itself as a journalistic organ. Where my journalists were during the meeting when the matter of Truth Discovering was needed them the most? What was the role of Intelligencer’s Panelist? They asked lame questions (with exception of Rebecca Marchand) but not of them brought to the table their expert judgments when the clueless apparatchiks (Mr. Voci and Mr. McNeill ) expressed insulating silliness. Among the Intelligencer’s panelist were composers, musicologists and musical critics – where was their voices of rational and competence? The whole panel turned into the Mr. Voci responses to the subjects that he did not understand well and the endless moronic monologs from Dave MacNeill, a former WCRB general manager, who believes that IQ of a classical radio listener shall not be higher than IQ of a teenager pterodactyl. Why no one followed up the stupid insistence of Voci/MacNeill diet that Boston classical station shall be no more “loaded” then drive-by ratio? Why no one makes MacNeill to shut up when he insisted that classical station shall be “music that does not require attention”? Where was the demand for clarification where Mr. Voci and Richard Dyer presented contradictory information? Richard Dyer was blabbing that BSO was not happy with Friday Broadcasts and it was why our Friday Broadcasts were discontinued. In 10 minutes Mr. Voci was pulling out of his ass an argument that it would cost $20K-$30K for WGBH to transmit Friday Broadcasts. Both comments were completely idiotic. BSO willingly donate own live feed to public with no charge or fees. WGBH runs a dedicated feed from Symphony Hall, the feed that up all time and even the 24/7 live broadcast from Symphony Hall coast to WGBH ABSOLUTELY NOTHING as all recourses are in place.  Why Mr. Voci went for the sage of $20K-$30K cost? Why was it not the $200.000? Why no one insisted Mr. Voci to itemize the alleged $20K-$30K additional coast for the WBH Friday Broadcasts? Was it his attempt to extort more donations from public? I am sorry but it is dirty method! Partially because as just before he informed that the reasons why Friday Broadcasts were suspended was not the cost consideration but the fact the “Friday and Saturday Broadcasts are duplicates”. Where were my Intelligencer journalists who would explain to a Mr. Voci the whole premise of “LIVE PERFORMING MUSICAL EVENTS” and why for each sane person it would be such a barbaric vulgarity to hear such a comment from a manager of classical radio station?

I was not going to but I had a few words to say at the panel and I started from stating that it is an illusion that WGBH 99.5 cares what we the listeners wants. According to the panelists the WGBH has 76 pages of customer complains since the WGBH took over 99.5. Mr. Voci said that he does not even know what that complains are all about! Furthermore the attitude with which he stated it clearly indicated that he would feel annoyed with an idea that he even might families himself with those complains.

I was listening all of it I was asking myself “What the hell we all doing in here”? It was absolutely clear that WGBH does not have cultural capacity to understand what the people were talking in that church.  The complains from the public that WGBH 99.5 is more and more turns into old WCRB crap (with primitive music and idiotic hosts who had be working selling hotdogs during Red Socks games) was faced by Mr. Voci with a lack of understanding the those complains. I presume that Mr. Voci  position reflects  the position  of the entire WGBH upper management. I am, as a listener, felt myself so much screwed, so lonely and so underrepresented! I felt this way not particularly because my voice had no representation in my city public FM classical radio but because my interests (and the interests of thousands people like me) were methodically destroyed by corporate indifference. I truly felt like I was raped and the saddest part in that rape was that I voluntary paid for this “service”!

If cause it is not the question about $20K-$30K, it never was. If the WGBH 99.5 will get tomorrow $120.000.000 as a donation from some kind of oligarch then the context of the WGBH programming will absolutely no be changing. We still will have on 99.5 airs the third movements of the same quarter, first movements of flute concerts, the same overtures from operettas, brainless selection of music and the WGBH management flipping eyes and asking “Why it is wrong?” I need to note that since the WCRB the WGBH programming is better but it is very rapidly sliding back to the “lumpenproletariat entertainment tunes” …. Very sad!

After the meeting I spoke briefly with Mr. Voci and told him that one of the ways to WGBH to stay as a “cultural program” is to development not the brainless DJ presentation of random tunes but to develop and to brew truly compartmentalized authored programs. The best classical programs on today Boston FM dialer are the highly personalized programs by David Elliott from WHRB and by Brian Bell from WGBH. I told to Mr. Voci: why do not give to Mr. Bell another 2-3 slots per week to run 2-3 new programs? For us, the listeners, it is very important to know the STRUCTURE of the programs and to know that the context of the program was well researched and selected. After all, NPR was always known and supported by many for the QUALITY OF CONTENT!

Anyhow, I am feeling worn thin to think and do not anything about the 99.5 as WGBH demonstrated a clear lack of any sanity that I would support.  The only positive outcome from all of it I see is that in a few years when the 99.5 shut down the lights the upper WGBH management will be forced to work in McDonalds, where they are belong today. I have no idea who allowed to THOSE PEOPLE to manage THE CLASSICAL STATION in the city like Boston.

Anyhow, the WGBH Panel Discussion was not “great success”. The major question of the discussion was not asked by the Intelligencer panelists and the major question was the following: “The WGBH administration, how different you see your role if the WGBH 99.5 would not be a classical station but be a station dedicated to … gardening and the SKU of WHRB operation were not classic music events but the piles of organic potato?

PS:  People, please kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill the stupid HD radio!

The WGBH has run itself to ground and now are looking for a new classical music program director:

http://classical-scene.com/2010/11/07/one-year/