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Union Tribune Does Hatchet Job On New Miami Dance Station (Jan 10, 2002)The San Diego Union-Buffon has once again printed a radio news piece authored by clueless newspaper music journalists such as the one that ran yesterday under Preston Turegano's "Broadcast Briefs" column, which pretty much presents you radio news that you've already read a week or two earlier in DFS News (in this case, the news about WPYM 93.1 dropping classical for "South Florida's Pure Dance" as the slogan says nicely).The blasted newspaper presented more of an angle slamming the radio station for dropping classical rather than for telling it like it is: a celebration of a radio station deciding to serve its listeners with a format that fills in a programming niche not being served by the other stations in the market; in this case, dance music in Miami, Florida, where the former WTMI dropped its lone classical music format in favor to an all dance music genre on New Year's Eve 2001. What's wrong with these radio newspaper journalists? In Turegano's case, he took the angle of presenting a piece that is biased in favor of classical music and opera on the radio (which we have 3 1/2 of in San Diego county, more than needed IMHO). There's nothing wrong with classical and opera, two musical genres I have no stock in. To take a news scoop and do no justice to it like Turegano does just proves how little the newspaper journalists research for additional facts. For instance, how does the new dance format in Miami differ from its competetion in terms of musical selections? Turegano should have called the WPYM radio station and asked the music director and programmer there questions to help the journalist contruct a more fair article on the format switch. Chances are, Turegano doesn't listen to dance radio, that's because there is no San Diego station that programs dance full-time (but there should!). If he listened to a the dance station on the Internet, then compared with the playlist of Z90 or Magic 92.5, then he would get a better understanding on what the dance music genre is all about. It is unfortunate that the result of lack of research is what ended up in millions of homes Wednesday morning. Here is the full article. Tell me what you think of the piece... Classical-music fans in South Florida are mourning the death of WTMI/FM 93.1 -- the region's only full-time classical radio station, which switched to an all-dance music format on New Year's Eve. "I shut it off. I'm not going to listen to that stuff," said one former WTMI listener. "We feel very left out, given the range of choices. It' s unfortunate that 99 percent of stations have either news and talk or music that isn' t classical." The last classical music played on the station was Beethoven' s Ninth Symphony. At 12:05 p.m. the new "Party 93.1" opened with a song by Adrenaline. "It' s disgusting," said Marvin David Levy, an opera composer who lives in Fort Lauderdale. "It comes under the general topic of the dumbing down of America. Everything is being homogenized in every area of life including serious music," Levy told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.This is D.T. again. Where were the positive reactions to this format change? Why do I get the impression that classical music fans just don't understand any genre that is not classical; they're just as dumb as rap-rock fans who don't understand any genre that is not rap-rock. To lump dance into the pool of homogenized music does no justice to the genre that has wide demographic appeal dating to the baby boomers, but classical seems to appeal only to the boomer's parents, which is not exactly a demographic the radio advertisers wish to target. Whatever the case, the Union-Buffoon has once again proven that its radio news coverage is shallow and infrequent. For radio news, please read Chris Carmichael's sdradio.net column on the Web; you get the news fresh daily and there's a lot of local radio people news that doesn't get covered by the U-T anyway that may be of interest of you. What do I have to say about classical music and dance radio in terms of support? If there was a market for classical music radio in Miami, people would have been more influential and bothered to fill out the Arbitron diaries with its call letters; if they don't like the fact that they've lost their favorite station, then they have only themselves to blame for the loss if they chose not to spend a few minutes writing in the Arbitron diary and sending it back to them in time. If you support classical music in San Diego, then take some time and write in the call letters or correct frequency of the station you are listening to (there's XBACH 540, KPBS 89.5, XLNC 90.7, and KFSD-AM 1450). Be sure to write in the correct station and frequency you are listening to; do not confuse one for the other. If you don't know, then look for the frequency that's on your digital radio receiver, or wait for the announcer to say them to you. Listen to some great CHR/Rhymthic Radio! (Jan 10, 2002)http://www.streamaudio.com/portalplayer/buildstation.asp?station=WPYM_FM for WPYM "The Party" 93.1 in Miami, FL; Coxhttp://www.streamaudio.com/portalplayer/buildstation.asp?station=WPYO_FM for WPYO "The Party" 95.3 Orlando, FL; Cox In fact, I added them to the Groove Galaxy and DFS News pages for easier finding. When will local radio get a clue and get a dance music station on in San Diego? Hip hop and soft R&B is not dance. Get it? Got it? Good! |