Re: smooth jazz

[Norm Rosen <inorm99@earthlink.net>]

SteveOrdinetz wrote:

> Norm Rosen wrote:
> >WICN 90.5  plays 130
> >hours of real jazz per week.
> >Most of the shows are locally produced, the audience is sizable, and growing.
> >That's the exception.
>
> Aha, but we're talking a non-com.  Apples and oranges here.  Having an
> audience thats "sizable and growing" (please define) and being able to make
> any money programming to it are 2 very different things.  BTW, where is
> WICN?

That type of thinking is what takes all the creativity out of radio.
While survival is everything, it is a fine line that seperates survival from
greed
I, for one avoid listening to stations that pander to the lowest common
denominator, or
sound like everyone else musically. I also don't find it easy to work in radio
for "suits"
who spend more time obsessing about the bottom line, than how good the on-air
product is.

Real Jazz, and eclectic radio do make money, enough to survive. Non-Comms  as you
call us have  nice, grass-roots support where listeners actually become part of
the station's
programming decisions, and help keep this type of programming on the air with
donations
large and small.
In the case of WBUR in Boston, and WBEZ out of Chicago, these are very sucessful
"Non-Coms" who do more than survive.They are extremely successful.
In the case of WBEZ, they have maintained their eclectic programming, while
finding more effective ways to raise money.


Having grown up listening to progressive rock stations, (both comm and non-comm)
with their willingness to program to a small, but loyal share of listeners who
sometimes
enjoyed some Earl "Fatha" Hines, and John Lee Hooker with their Jefferson
Airplane,
and had to endure time after time, stations being "zapped", or "tweaked", or
terminated
in favor of soft-rock, or contemporary hits. I think it's more important, and
meaningful to
find better ways of surviving with a great unique product, than the cookie cutter
approach

BTW, WICN is licensed to Worcester, and has a signal that covers all of
metrowest, central
Massachusetts, Northern Rhode Island, Southern New Hampshire, and Northeast
Connecticut, and is the only station (non-comm, or comm) with a consistant jazz
and roots
format, while the other Public stations have gone strickly the News-talk-public
affairs route,
or a hodge-podge of programming.
We have a new transmitter and with it many new listeners, and we began
broadcasting on
the web in the fall of 2000.

Norm Rosen
Host of Blue Monday
8:00-11:00PM
WICN 90.5 FM
http://www.wicn.org