The old classical radio items are not linked between the two conferences,
and anyway they are old.
 
At the UM student opera last Sunday, there was a signboard advertising
an internet radio station at 
   http://www.classicalmusicdetroit.com
Looking at their website, they say they have three old WQRS hands
as their DJs: Davis Gloff, Jack Goggin and Pat McElroy.
Is the web operation actually making money and paying these guys?
 
   (For those new to the story: WQRS was Detroit's commercial 
    classical FM station until it was sold and converted into a 
    series of not-very-successful rock stations.)

If someone tries this out, please file a report.
 
----------

The April issue of the Ann Arbor Observer reports on how WUOM,    
the NPR station at the University of Michigan, is faring in the 
ratings since their decision to drop classical music and move 
to a news/talk format.  WUOM didn't just improve its ratings with 
the format switch -- it is now the dominant radio 
station for Washtenaw County radio listeners.   
The top three Arbitron ratings are:
                WUOM   10.9
                 WJR    6.4
                WNIC    5.1

I don't have historic ratings information available, but it was reported
at the time of the format switch that WUOM's ratings as a classical 
station were not good.
                                       (April 2001 Observer, page 9)

18 responses total.

And, at the format switch, I stopped listening to WUOM (and supporting
them). 

Did you have any trouble getting through the crowd of people running 
the other way?

I was pleasantly surprised to discover that in northern Michigan (Cadillac)
you can hear classical music (Interlaken station) with much better reception
on a small clock radio than you can hear classical music in Ann Arbor on a
good receiver.  I leave my receiver set to mono to improve my chances.  
Detroit used to have about five stations playing classical radio (including
AM).  Any updates on digital radio?

Re #2: no. We live in different realities, so we just passed through each
other. I avoid professional wrestling too. 

  Rane is on a lofty pedestal, indeed. 

  It must be very lonely up there, way above the professional wrestling fans 
  and NPR listeners..

I find the noise on NPR annoying - they are imitating something they think
is music in between the talking.  And the little bit of music that they do
play at night is so full of obnoxious commercials (blaring jazz or swing to
advertise some other program, late at night) that I turn it off and switch
to a tape or a record.  I wish we had Interlaken radio here.  No commercials.

They had me pretty well fooled then.  Whatever they're imitating between
talking, I'd thought it was music too.  

I can't say I've got a strong opinion one way or the other.  It would be nice
to have a reliable classical station in town, but I always liked CBC better
than WUOM anyway.  NPR is nice too, though.

There are several NPR stations in the local area.  Which one are y'all talking
about?  WUOM is mostly (all?) talk, some of it NPR.  WKAR is mostly classical,
with NPR news and features.  WEMU is mostly jazz and blues, with NPR news
and features.  I can't follow talk shows, and WEMU has more local news than
WKAR, so I listen to WEMU.  If I get tired of jazz, there's WWWW and WKQL.
Neither of them has NPR news, but WEMU is just a button away at the top
of the hour. 

It is really quite nie. I recommend it.

(I agree with Keesan that all the seque musical snippets are extremely
annoying.)

WUOM has a teensy bit of classical music left.  We've just listened
to a broadcast concert by the Flint Symphony Orchestra: Rachmaninoff's
Second Symphony.  10pm to 11:30 or midnight, it looks like.

Britain's "Classic FM" is webcasting via Windows Media Player.  
Classic FM is easy to make fun of because it's cute "Classics Lite,"
but we had a lot of fun with it when we were in Britain in 1995.
 
http://www.classicfm.co.uk

Oh, I'm just wallowing in Classic FM.  We listened to it so much when 
we were in Britain.  Wallow, wallow.  And now, the British traffic reports!

Not exactly radio, but here's a Wired news story about classical 
music organizations trying to figure out what they want to do on the 
Internet:
 
http://www.wired.com/news/mp3/0,1285,43644,00.html
 
Essentially this seems to be a framework for the musicians union and
various managements to work out what they are going to do next,
now that the existing union contracts have priced almost all US
orchestras out of recording deals, and the sales of new standard 
repetoire CDs have pretty much collapsed anyway.  

My tentative grasp of this is that the organizations and the union
are coming to grips with the idea that they're going to have to 
use streaming Internet audio as a promotional tool without expecting
it to generate much if any revenue, but I'm not 100% sure that's correct.

Some really complicated legal agreements and understandings are 
posted at:  http://www.electronicmediaforum.org

Just found today: BBC Radio 3, putting out a Real Audio stream.
Start at http://www.bbc.co.uk  and grub around until you find Radio 3.
We listened for about 45 minutes; low fi, sorta like AM radio, but 
the content was nice.
 
Radio 3 is primarily classical though they also include some folk 
and world music, and I think there was some jazz in the mix too.
I think it's conceived as a "serious arts" station.

I have fond memories of Radio 3 while driving around in Britain, but it 
has too much talking for my listening preferences while being a 
computer jockey.

BBC Radio 3 has now upgraded their maximum Real Audio streaming rate
from 44Kbps to 64Kbps.  This takes the sound quality from AM-stereo
quality to somewhere close to average FM quality.
I'm marvelling at the detail I heard in the end of the Massenet
opera HERODIADE, and in the Stravinsky clarinet piece I'm 
hearing right now; the listening fatigue I get on the 44K programming
is greatly reduced at the higher bit rate.  Home users would
need DSL or cable to get this rate, and even then I don't know
if it would work for them.

I found that the Detroit station at 24K mono sounds better than what I get
on my radio most of the time, which is pretty full of static even in mono.
You would have to have a local or at least a strong FM station to equal their
quality.  Canada is sometimes not too bad.

re #16: It works fine over my DSL connection.

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