U-turn
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February 09, 2005
Broadcasters' minds
What's going on with broadcasting organizations? I recently read some news about American radio stations taking classical music off their schedules. But whoever thinks this is just an American phenomena, please, read on.
The German Hessische Rundfunk plans to shut down its classical station HR-Klassik. The Frankfurt based organization says it is forced to do so because of budget cuts. The HR orchestras are lucky to survive this round of cutbacks, but it is easy to predict the HR Radio Symphony Orchestra will be next when there is no station it has to play for. Their colleagues of the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra weren't that 'lucky'.
Similar things are going on in the Netherlands where two public funded Christian broadcasters (I am not going to explain the unexplainable structure of Dutch broadcasting politics), EO (Evangelic) and NCRV (Protestant), decided last year classical music wasn't their concern anymore. Three out of four orchestra's who owe their existence to Dutch radio and television have to merge into two orchestra's. The other one, the big band like Metropole Orchestra, lost half its budget and is forced to go commercial.
A quick survey during a meeting with young broadcasting employees I attended the other day showed a majority in favor of recycling radio time or internet presence of classical and contemporary art music. Some of these people, I estimate, are in about 10 to 15 years decision makers...
Posted by Renske at 13:44 UTC | permanent link