Hooray, classical-music radio is saved despite the sale of WQXR! Or is it? Well, the NYT pockets a bagload o' cash

Once upon a time, WQXR mattered.

by Ken

I started out yesterday afternoon writing this as an "Open Letter" to (1) the Head Scumbag at the New York Times Company and (2) Laura Walker, president and chief executive of listener-supported public radio station WNYC, congratulating them on the deal that was then just-announced, and was being passed off as having "saved" classical radio in New York City: the Times Company's sale of WQXR (currently the tristate metropolitan area's only all-classical radio station) to WNYC (which continues to broadcast a certain amount of classical music only because it hasn't dared to dump it, for fear of the uproar that would result from the portion of its donor base that remains unaccountably attached to that broadcast-spectrum-wasting crap).

It turns out that the Times Company didn't exactly "sell WQXR to WNYC," and somewhere along the line, perhaps in sorting out the strands of the deal (which has a certain complexity but isn't all that complex), I discovered I had abandoned the "open letter" format. Hmm, too peeved for sarcasm?

The Times has owned WQXR since 1944. Since the sudden demise of its commercial rival WNCN in 1993, WQXR has been the city's only all-classical station. Juilliard School president Joseph Polisi is quoted in the NYT article: "“WQXR has been in so many ways a symbol of New York’s culture for decades.” (Is it necessary to resurrect the irony that classical music was once master of the FM band? Those are the days when commercial broadcasters scorned FM, while classical-music broadcasters and listeners relished its vastly superior sound quality, all the more so when FM went stereo. Yes, I think it is necessary. Pointless but necessary.)

It turns out that while the Times apparently has indeed sold WQXR, it wasn't all sold to WNYC. Oh yes, the call letters were sold, and presumably all the physical crap associated with, which you assume the Times regards as just a cheaper alternative to having to have it all carted off to the dump. But the station's most valuable asset, the 96.3 FM frequency and powerful 6,000-watt signal and transmitting equipment, ah, that's a different story.

That prime chunk of FM real estate, it turns out, is going to Univision, which is swapping the next-to-useless 105.9 frequency, with its FCC-limited 600-watt signal, now occupied by its station WCAA. According to the NYT report by Richard Perez-Pena and Daniel Wakin:

The deal gives Univision a stronger signal and a coveted spot near the middle of the FM band for WCAA, reflecting the region’s growing Hispanic population and the increasing prominence of Spanish broadcasting. WCAA’s mix of talk and music includes the morning show of Luis Jimenez, one of the most popular Spanish-language radio hosts.

At the heart of the deal is the Times Company's urgent need for money, more apparently than it could likely raise by putting NYT publisher Pinch Sulzberger to work as a male escort. Obviously even if WNYC had actually wanted to "buy WQXR," the price in today's commercial radio market would have been prohibitive. According to the plausible-looking NYT account (Perez-Pena and Wakin are both excellent reporters), the Times is coming out of the deal with $45 million, $11.5 million from WNYC (the station has already mounted a $15 million fund-raising drive to cover the purchase price plus "transition costs"), and $33.5 million from Univision.

So everybody comes out ahead, right? The Times gets its money, WCAA gets that great 96.3 frequency, and WNYC gets to get all that goddamned classical music the hell off its precious 93.9 frequency. (Finally!) And classical radio in New York is saved, hurrah!

More or less.

Now I don't begrudge WCAA's Hispanic listeners a better frequency for their station. From their old perch atop the FM band with that mighty 600-watt transmitter, they're lucky to have listeners at all. However, the number of listeners in the tristate metropolitan area who will be able to receive a good enough signal from the "new" WQXR -- once the switch happens (date unknown; it depends on FCC approval) -- to reproduce classical music is about 27.

I'm not concerned, as many people apparently are, about the change in WQXR from a commercial to a listener-supported format. Or indeed about such other format changes as are likely to occur. Partly because of the commercials the station has been all but unlistenable for 20-30 years. But that's only partly because of the commercials. In what was no doubt considered a necessity for commercial survival, the old management has dumbed down the format to the point of parody.

THE CURRENT WQXR PEOPLE AREN'T A TOTAL LOSS

There are some good people at the station. Back when I was looking desperately for a morning TV or radio replacement to help get me out of the house after Air America Radio abandoned morning programming in New York, I discovered that WQXR's current morning guy, Jeff Spurgeon, is quite good. He's bright and personable and clearly loves music (it's a pleasure to hear a classical-music announcer who can actually pronounce names and titles in the standard foreign languages), and might even be able to do a real radio show if he wasn't enmired in all the yawping crap that has afflicted WQXR. Assuming he's interested in staying with the station, the new management would be crazy not to see what he can do. Heck, I'd give it a shot.

Assuming I can tune the new WQXR in.

WNYC president Laura Walker is assuring institutions like the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic that they don't have to worry about being dumped from WQXR. Of course they will be included in the new format ("We will not only look to continue those relationships, but to extend and expand and deepen them,” says Ms. Walker.) But I don't think those great institutions are so much worried about being included as being heard. Because it seems to me that while no, the plug hasn't literally been pulled on classical radio in New York, as soon as the FCC approves the frequency swap, it's going to fall off the end of the broadcast spectrum.

HELLO, POUGHKEEPSIE AND ASBURY PARK!

The Times reporters note: "WQXR is broadcast even farther afield on independently owned 'repeater' signals in Poughkeepsie and Asbury Park, N.J. It was not clear on Tuesday what would become of those arrangements."

I wouldn't hold my breath regarding the "repeater" signals. Who would pay for them?

Oh yes, while I'm bitching, in fairness I would be remiss not to mention: "Listeners will still be able to go online to hear WQXR, which will retain a Web site of its own." So even after classical radio effectively disappears from New York radio, it'll still be on the Internet.

Noted.

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