Civilization Disintegration: NY Times Ditches Its Classical Music Station

WQXR is the soundtrack of my life.

After 65 years of ownership, the NY Times is ditching New York City's only all-classical music station to save its dying journalistic model---news printed daily on paper. As I said in last night's tweet, I'd rather give up the hardcopy newspaper (and read the Times online) than lose the station.

WQXR will be owned and operated by WNYC, New York Public Radio, as a listener-supported station. That means we'll have to put up with all those irritating fund drives, when we'd much rather be enjoying more Beethoven and Debussy.

The odd thing about the above logo, which appears on the radio station's website, is that WQXR some time ago ditched the broadcasters from the Times' own newsroom and now relies on Bloomberg for its regular news reports. Another recent economy move was eliminating all live announcers from midnight to 5:30 a.m. If you want to know what's playing in the wee hours, you have to consult the website listings.

If FCC approval is granted, according to the NY Times' report, "WQXR would move to a weaker signal near the high end of the FM band [105.9]" and WCAA, a Spanish-language station owned by Univision, would get the 96.3 spot on the dial.

"Weaker signal"? Will we New Jerseyans have to put up with spotty reception along with the periodic pledge drives? My preliminary foray to 105.9 was reassuring on that score. But I'm a mere George Washington Bridge ride from Manhattan and I can see the Empire State Building, where the transmitter is, from my window. What about Mahwah?

"Executives from the three companies say the transaction with preserve classical music on New York airways and better serve the area's Spanish-speaking community," according to WNYC's report on the transaction.

But how well will it serve the classical music community? It seems likely that WNYC's programming for WQXR will change it significantly, maybe even for the better. My guess is that it's going to skew younger and edgier.

Maybe conventional radios, like newspapers, are a dying model anyway. We may have to get not only our news, but also our music online. For technophobes of my parents' very elderly generation, that means getting left out and left behind.