After 17 years of broadcasting, listeners no longer will be able to hear classical music streaming from WOUB.
WOUB replaced the classical music programming, which was broadcast from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, with five news and talk programs.
The change is intended to boost listener ratings by about 20 percent to ensure federal funding continues, said Tim Myers, director of radio and interactive services.
We were expecting to see much more regularity in listening throughout the day than we were seeing. Our audience is really dipping down very low in the afternoon
Myers said.
Myers said the change is not just a news or classical music issue but positioning the station for the future. To receive government funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is 22 percent of WOUB's budget, the station had to meet a financial index of about $300,000 in private funding, which excludes funding from the university. WOUB would almost need to double the money it has raised so far, which is well below $200 000. WOUB was also 12 to 15 percent below the listener index it needed to receive matching federal funds.
Jeannie Jeffers, membership manager at WOUB, said the last pledge drive, March 19 through 21, collected $18,785 with 234 pledges.
The programming change was based on two years of research about what listeners in the area wanted, Myers said. The coverage area includes Athens, Cambridge, Chillicothe, Ironton and Zanesville.
In 2003, Arbitron, a radio ratings research firm, conducted an assessment of WOUB's programming and fundraising trends during 2001 and 2002. According to WOUB's Web site, (http://www.woub.org), Arbitron found that WOUB's audience listened to competing radio stations by a 4-to-1 margin over WOUB's classical music. Recently, Bob Harper & Company, a radio research firm, surveyed 200 listeners and found that classical music was a low priority for the majority of listeners.
OU assistant professor of broadcast journalism Mary Rogus said public radio stations are moving toward more talk on their stations. She said public stations need to pay attention to what their audience wants because of cuts in federal and state funding.
Public stations more and more are having to really respond to what their listeners tell them because the listeners are providing a larger and larger percentage of their funding Rogus said. The whole rise for talk and information radio
whether it's commercial or public
over the last five years has been phenomenal. People just can't get enough of it.
OU music professor Michael Carrera said he is not necessarily upset that they changed the programming, but it is the way in which they did it that is upsetting. He said WOUB should have talked to professors in the School of Music. Of the 200 people surveyed, only one was an OU School of Music professor, he said.
We know more about classical music than pretty much anybody else in the community
Carrera said. If I have cancer
I'm not going to go to a dermatologist.
Carrera said he and others have written the station about its decision. Myers said he expected the station to receive feedback regarding the decision to cut classical music. He said he knew that some people did enjoy the programming.
We expected to hear concern and disappointment that the classical music were disappearing because we know that there are people who listened to it and relied on it
Myers said. Because we broadcast that every day for about 17 years
this was a very difficult decision for us.
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