Maybe KINGFM's problem is ... classical music

Not-for-profit KINGFM is the only classical music radio in Seattle, but to the dismay of its ardent listeners, it "disappeared" in the ratings after the PPMs began providing more precise data about the listenership. It's tied up in the basement with KVI.

 A revealing piece last week in Crosscut, by Feliks Banel,  Seattle media consultant, historian and radio blogger, lays it out well.

All the civic hand-wringing and analysis over the plight of the city's cultural icon ignores the pachyderm in the orchestra pit: classical music, if not dead, is lingering.

Record sales are down; live performance costs have sky-rocketed, while ticket sales have tanked; audiences are graying up and dying off. Orchestras are folding all over the country. Public schools don't teach music education. Classical music programming is scarce, even on PBS and public radio.

While it was never exactly, mass market, it's demographically-challenged, endangered in part because it's failed even more than usual to entice the next generation. What's happening to KING is happening to long-hair stations all over the country- Classic 99.1 (KFUO-FM) in St. Louis, it seems, is the latest. 

(Such gloomy predictions have been made before, but classical devotees point to volumes of music downloads on the Net, and other localized or small distribution sources for a genre that's always been a niche. Add 'em all up, they say, and it's not so much shrunk as fragmented).

Cool jazz has the age-demo problem as a fading radio format as well. But it's not only the fading of the music as a popular genre that's problematic. The recession doesn't help -- ad revenues suck for all media. KINGFM's had lay-offs and drastic cost-cutting, but that isn't enough: something structural must change.

An option, perhaps the most palatable, is what Banel calls the Hybrid, Public-Radio Model. Listeners complain about dissonance of obnoxious radio commercials with the restrained and melodious tones of Beethoven and Liszt. And ads are plainly insufficient, to provide the revenues needed, so the hybridization part would be to add pledge-drives. That might be problematic, too: 

The [Chicago hybrid] WFMT business model is obviously attractive, but making that switch would mean KING-FM would join an already crowded field of pledge-seeking media in the Seattle market: radio stations KUOW, KPLU, KEXP, and KBCS; and TV stations KCTS and KBTC.

Banel painstakingly recounts the heritage station's complex history as a commercial, then a commercial/non-profit radio station. Seems every civic-minded poobah in Seattle arts and media say they want to save KING as is, but the big ugly changes that might be necessary to save it, would certainly upset the avid listers, and might end up transformed into a radio station unrecognizable to those who love it. 

Comments

[joanie]

Why does everything have to be paid? If there is a niche for classical music, then those who love it should continue to provide it unpaid. All media is going through change. There must be many, many people who would spend an hour hosting a radio program for no money at all. The listeners would be those who enjoy the music.

I don't totally understand signals and radio stations but isn't their room on the band for more local and niche programming? I heard once of a guy who programmed out of his garage. They kept trying to shut him down. Did his weak little signal interfere with others?

Can't they solve the technology of all this? Do we have to have so many duplicate stations?

Look at the internet. We can all go wherever we want to for free - unless we choose to pay. So, radio is changing. Adjust. Get innovative.

To me, it is like the wealthy record labels trying to protect their profits by making all kinds of laws against duplicating music. Technology is democratizing and reducing profit in a lot of areas. Nobody said a small group of people in any industry deserved to stay rich.

Let the people who love it keep it going. Sort of like your blog, Michael.

[ksr]

If schools won't raise a new generation of educated music lovers, and current stations can't figure out how to reach what's left, then it's time for them to close. Not enough people care. The ones that lose will move to the internet, Sirius/XM, load their mp3 players or start their own CD or record collection. Nothing says terrestrial classics stations have to exist any more than the news stations that this blog loves to bash.

If you think music lovers should provide the service unpaid, why not walk a mile in their shoes? It'll take you exactly 2 minutes to find out how expensive it is to run a broadcast facility in the Seattle market... or most anywhere else, for that matter.

[joanie]

I was just asking, ksr. I agree with every word you said.

But, if a guy can run a signal out of his garage, there must be ways to do it on the cheap.

[Sanka]

The Internet is the answer to both of you. Plenty of band room, no regulations, cheap...

[Parker]

Seattle elites thought they could buy a radio station for the music that nobody but them listen to any more. It couldn't break even, even with all the non-proft tax-breaks. so sorry charlie. let somebody else have the spot-- nice location, right in the middle of the dial. Wonder when they will turn Benaroya Hall into a convention center or a skating rink?

[joanie]

How do I hear it in the car . . . in my classroom where I'm not allowed to stream radio . . . on a hike if I don't want to lug my walkman or whatever you all use these days? (aging myself, huh?)

I don't want to carry tapes, cds and whatever else is out there. You think we sit around at our computers all day long?

Enlighten me, sanka. If you've got the answer, I'll go get it.

[joanie]

But parker, they can keep it. Didn't the Bullet's leave them a boatload of money to run it? I thought they did.

[Coiler]

KING fm had one of the highest ratings in the country for classical stations. It hasn't been the same since the days of Tom Dahlstrom and George Shangrow.

"Former KING-FM colleague George Shangrow, who left the station in December 2004 after his contract for the "Live, By George" show was not renewed, said Dahlstrom was fired last Thursday because he "had the temerity to make some minor changes in music programming without the approval of Bob Goldfarb [the station's program director]." Among the changes: Dahlstrom played a 10-minute piece of music from the French Revolution in honor of Bastille Day on July 14.

"The Bullitt sisters gave this station to the city, in trusteeship of these three organizations," Shangrow said. "This board and manager have violated that gift. The Bullitts didn't intend the station to become classical music wallpaper."

[sartre]

Mikey's right classical and jazz are dying off.

[joanie]

Interesting. Thanks, coiler. Even classical needs personality.

[sparky]

Only in America would we consider a music genre that is a couple of milleniums old as "dying" because it isn't as popular as other music on the radio.

No music education in the schools? Tell that to my friend Carol who is the music director of a jr high choir that is 425 kids strong. Tell that to the numerous music educators in Washington whose groups routinely take top honors at regional and national competitions. Tell that to the 80 4th graders at my school who are in love with orchestra class. Tell that to my 17 year old nephew who has performed classically based vocal music at competitions in California and Oregon. Mr. Banel did not do his research before tossing out that comment.

Now, maybe people don't listen to KING as much as they listen to jazz or rock, but it would be a shame to lose the station. I stream KING and KPLU in the library and my students often ask me to turn it up a little. Granted, this is probably the only environment where they will get to hear it, but it makes it even more important that they hear it. We are losing touch, as a society, of rich artistic knowledge.

Only in America do people equate classical music with elitism, along with other kinds of the arts. It's really a shame.

[ksr]

"if a guy can run a signal out of his garage, there must be ways to do it on the cheap."

Depends on what level of service you're talking about, Joanie. Sure, for a couple thousand bucks you can throw a few watts out of your garage and cover a couple of miles (more, if you live on top of Queen Anne). In that sense, I wish the FCC could find a piece of spectrum that people could just toss a signal on without being hunted down as "pirates".

Past that, you're talking about really serious money, to license, equip, site, maintain and feed power hungry transmitters... even though (as the komo situation proved) you can feed even those things with MP3 players. I'm not sure how you could do someting like that out of your garage without some kind of seriously formal financial structure to keep it going.

Sparky: Wasn't trying to imply that classical music was dead in the schools. However, band and orchestra are a couple of subjects that always seem to be at the top of the "cut list" whenever levy time comes around. Funny... football never seems to make that list.

[AuthenticAndrew]

Many blogs like to post posts about how things are dying. It gets people's attention. KIRO has been on its death bed for like four years. I love this blog but I gotta be honest.

[sparky]

Oh I wasnt referring to your comment, ksr..I meant the esteemed Feliks Banel.
And you are so right..sports will never be touched, regardless if a school district doesn't have the money to have electricity. Music, Art...those are the first to go.
Pity, since kids who are musicians also excel at math.

[Jim]

The comparison to KFUO-FM in St. Louis is not appropriate. The problems at KFUO are due to awful management. That station also has a KFUO-AM outlet which focuses on religious talk. Both KFUO stations have long survived on donations which come not only from the St. Louis area but nationwide. Income for both stations dropped DRAMATICALLY after the station cancelled their most popular radio show "Issues Etc." Fans of the show know that it was cancelled for purely political reasons. The show had a national audience, including a Seattle affiliate until it was cancelled in Spring 2008. That is when I stopped donating to KFUO. I now listen to Issues Etc online and download podcasts from the show's website. Thousands of listeners worldwide like myself now support Issues Etc directly which has been even more successful in its current incarnation.