... And Washington, D.C. Is One Of The Most Ill-Served Cultural Capitals In The World

"When WETA changed formats in February, dropping classical music to become another all-news-and-talk public radio station, music fans, musicians and cultural organizations pummeled station executives with protests. How could the nation's capital have no public classical station? How would young people be exposed to the music?

"People were angry -- still are -- and I understand that," says Dan DeVany, general manager of the station (90.9 FM) and architect of the switch. "But there was an audience in the Washington area that was not being served by public radio, and we wanted to reach out to them." He's talking about breaking out of the traditional public radio audience of affluent, highly educated, older and white listeners.

But after two ratings books, two fund drives and nine months of the new programming -- a mix of news and talk shows from National Public Radio, the BBC and other outside sources, much of it oriented to foreign affairs -- WETA's audience is smaller, no more generous than the classical audience was, and no more reflective of the demographics of the Washington area." ...

Marc Fisher "Beethoven's Revenge: Ratings Drop at Classical Music-less WETA" December 11, 2005.

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Despite WETA-FM's act of cultural and musical betrayal, I remain a WETA subscriber. (Have you seen the cultural and musical betrayal of WETA television?)













"...the Lion of Lucerne is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world".

-- Mark Twain

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