Boston’s commercial Classical music radio station, WCRB, is struggling at its new frequency, according to a recent news account, as seen below. The moment it left its original frequency can be heard here.
Meanwhile, public station powerhouse WGBH is now offering its HD Radio all-Classical music channel on the Net. Bravo. Way to go. Encoding runs at 128 Kbps, and it sounds fine. I just added this link for it on my Windows desktop.
Reception is mixed to new WCRB signal, programming
By Clea Simon, Globe Correspondent | January 25, 2007
Is WCRB-FM fading out?
While the Dec. 1 move of the commercial classical station’s frequency, from 102.5 to 99.5, has made tuning in troublesome for some listeners, changes in the station’s programming have raised other questions. In Boston’s classical music community, the reception to both the signal and the revived station has been mixed.
The sale of WCRB to Nassau Broadcasting moved the classical station down the dial — and its transmitter from Waltham north to Andover. “We have gotten calls that people south of the city and in Rhode Island are disappointed that they can’t pick us up,” says Tristram E. Collins, Nassau Broadcasting’s senior executive vice president. “But we have gotten calls from the western suburbs into Manchester, N.H., [letting us know that] this is a new listener base for us.” He cites demographics reports that show that although the station has lost approximately 500,000 listeners in Plymouth County, it now has access to nearly 1.5 million more, a net gain of a potential 1 million new listeners.“We’ve had one or two complaints,” says Mark Volpe, managing director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The new WCRB has continued a decades-long tradition of broadcasting BSO concerts live on Saturday nights. A Newton resident, Volpe has noticed no change in reception himself. “If there were a huge problem, I’d hear about it,” he says.
For many, the change has been subtle. Violinist Lynn Chang, who teaches at the Boston and New England conservatories, listens to radio primarily while driving. “The signal is not as clear,” he says. Although reception in his Newton home is still fine, “I used to be able to drive west almost to the New York border and get WCRB.”
For some, and not just those who live north of the city, the move has meant improved reception. “Before they moved, it was an exercise in frustration,” says Ellen Pfeifer. The former classical music critic currently handles public relations for the New England Conservatory. “The signal in Charlestown, where I live, was so staticky.” Now she finds reception in her home much clearer, although she loses the station while driving around Boston.
More to the point, say some in the classical community, is that the station has shrunk its playlist, resulting in more repetition and more single movements from longer works.
“We are repeating more popular pieces more frequently,” acknowledges WCRB program director Mark Edwards. He also commented on the return of an unpopular practice of playing parts of longer compositions. “While not everything we play is extracts from the full pieces, during the daytime hours certainly we are playing more than we had been playing of just extracts or segments,” he says.
Edwards explains that this strategy aims to increase the time most listeners spend tuning in. Currently, the station’s average time spent listening is less than six hours a week, and the theory is that these listeners will enjoy pieces that sound more familiar. For the classical music community, which is already familiar with the repertoire, this policy is not a success.
“It’s so limited, I find it unacceptable,” says violinist Magdalena Richter, who teaches at the Boston Conservatory and the New England Conservatory prep school.
Except for the Saturday evening BSO broadcasts, Pfeifer agrees. “Frankly, it’s a station I gave up on a long time ago,” she says. “Maybe it holds some appeal for people who are new to classical music.”
Like other musicians interviewed for this article, she often tunes into noncommercial stations, primarily WHRB-FM (95.3) and WGBH-FM (89.7) , which program classical music in blocks. WHRB is currently in its biannual “Orgy” period of special programming but usually carries classical weekdays 1-10 p.m., Saturdays 1-9 p.m., and Sundays 1:45 p.m.-midnight. WGBH plays classical weekdays 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and weekends 6-9 a.m., with a Sunday “SymphonyCast” from 2-5 p.m.
Neither of these noncommercial stations provides the daily 24-hour classical broadcasting of WCRB. For Chang, that consistency is a public service. “When I was growing up in the ’60s, [WCRB] was my first major source of classical music. I heard my first Beethoven symphony there,” he says. “For the less sophisticated listener, it remains a wonderful resource for an introduction to classical music. It’s had to change with the times.”
© Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company