WQXR Rumors: Could NYC Loses Its Only 24/7 Classical Music Station?

As I write this, I'm listening to my life's dominent soundtrack, WQXR, now playing the final triumphant movement of the Brahms Symphony No. 1 with Zubin Mehta, erstwhile NY Philharmonic music director, conducting the Israel Philharmonic. Owned by the NY Times, WQXR has been New York City's only all-classical music station since the lamentable 1974 demise of the even better WNCN.

Can this happen again? Today's NY Post reports:

Rumors are raging that top suits have discussed putting classical radio station WQXR (96.3 FM) on the block to shore up the company's dwindling cash stash....One interested party might be ESPN, which is said to want an FM outlet for its WEPN (1050 AM) sports programming, which includes Knick, Jet and Ranger games but can't be heard clearly in parts of the metro area.

I'm not a television watcher, and one of my most annoying chores whenever I travel is roaming the radio, trying to find one station that I can contentedly stick to in the hotel room. I usually settle for a public radio station, where there's at least some good music amidst the talk. I guess I need to get with the 21st century and listen to WQXR (while I still can) via webstream, if I happen to bring a laptop.

And I suppose that's part of the problem: The classical radio audience probably skews to people of my advanced middle age and older. But if New York, the nation's (if not the world's) capital of classical music, can't support at least one classical station, it's the end of civilization as I know it.

I hope these sports-trump-culture rumors (published on the Post's "Page Six," its gossip compendium) are a bad joke, or at least unfounded.