In article <telecom24.76.4@telecom-digest.org>, TELECOM Digest Editor
<ptownson@telecom-digest.org> wrote:
> I am very pleased to report we have a new _all classical music_ radio
> station here in southeast Kansas. Actually, KOSU is licensed out of
> Ketchum, Oklahoma (more or less across the state line) from
> Coffeyville, KS but it has a _very good_ signal here in Independence.
> It is at 107.5 FM, came on the air about a month ago, and largely
> plays classical music, 24/7, but also has some NPR programming. That
> leaves us now with _three_ good classical music stations here. In
> addition to the NPR stations in Tulsa (89.5 FM) and the station out
> of Pittsburg, KS (KRPS, 89.9 FM) we now have this third choice. The
> problem with 89.5 and 89.9 FM has been they are so far away from the
> Independence/Coffeyville area the only way to get a *good* signal
> listening to them is by attaching the cable line since they both get
> a free ride on the CableOne local system. But the new one, 107.5 booms
> in with no antenna at all, it seems.
> And where Pittsburg plays classical all day, along with BBC World
> Service overnight, and the Tulsa staton (89.5) tends to do mostly NPR
> with a smattering of classical music, the new people at 107.5 do
> classical all the time _day and night_ except for a few NPR things. I
> do not know for sure if we are the only radio market in the USA which
> now has _three_ stations doing classical music for many hours of the
> day, but I suspect we are. That does not count the two classical
> stations on cable only, which give us a rather good diet of
> intelligent, interesting music. Do you know of any other areas with
> three classical music stations all on the dial? New York, Chicago,
> San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc?
Chicago, for several years now, is down to _one_ full-time classical
station -- WFMT.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: I remember when there were three such
stations in Chicago also. The pioneer WEFM started in 1941 (well,
actually WBBM was doing classical music on AM radio from its earlier
years, but stopped around 1960.) Then WFMT came along in 1950 as the
first *commercial* classical station in Chicago. Then WNIB started in
1955. WEFM changed formats (then later, the call sign) in 1976; and
WNIB which started as a six hundred dollar investment by Bill and
Sonia Florian in 1955 changed formats in 2001 -- after insisting for
40 years that they would always be around -- when they sold out to
Clear Channel (which did not want the music, or the technical equip-
ment, but merely the 96.9 and 97.1 FM spots for a paltry fifty million
dollars; now there is but 'FMT left, and their announcers who were
idiots with their foreign language affectations for most of that time,
but they have improved a little, I guess. PAT]
Robert Bonomi (bonomi@host122.r-bonomi.com)