WDAV & SOUTH CAROLINA ETV/RADIO TO CO-PRODUCE CAROLINA LIVE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Lisa Gray – (704) 641-4691 or ligray@wdav.org

January 14, 2010 | DAVIDSON, NC –WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio and South Carolina ETV/Radio will co-produce Carolina Live, a weekly program of the Carolinas’ best live classical concert recordings. The show will be broadcast in the Charlotte region on WDAV 89.9FM; in Columbia, SC at WLTR 91.3FM; in Greenville/Spartanburg, SC at WEPR 90.1FM; and in Charleston, SC at WSCI 89.3FM. Carolina Live is the centerpiece of WDAV’s push to showcase regional music and music-makers. The new two-hour co-production debuted on January 5, 2010 and can be heard on Tuesdays at 7 PM in South Carolina and Saturdays at 3 PM on WDAV.

“This co-production with SCETV/Radio is an extension of the partnership we established last year with our Spoleto Festival USA coverage,” notes WDAV General Manager Benjamin K. Roe. “For Carolina Live listeners, the collaboration brings more diversity to the show’s musical offerings, as we will feature North and South Carolina performances. More important, it helps us build awareness and new fans for the organizations whose concerts we broadcast.”

A shared vision for more science news

By Rick Thames
Posted: January 10, 2010
rthames@charlotteobserver.com or 704-358-5001.

I love reader suggestions for new content. A reader who is motivated enough to e-mail or pick up the phone shares my passion for making a newspaper all it can be for its community.

But three years ago, the reader on the other end of the line stumped me with his suggestion.

Oh, it was a great idea. But how could we pull it off?

The caller was Stan Thompson, a retired engineer, strategic planner and futurist for BellSouth who lives near Mooresville. Stan, it turned out, was still thinking strategically.

The United States, including North Carolina, is falling dangerously behind in growing a high-tech work force, and it’s only getting worse, Stan told me. Science is no longer on the minds of our children when they contemplate exciting careers. Schools alone can’t raise that awareness. Mass media should also pay more attention to the topic.

Stan had brainstormed solutions with Bill Thunberg, then the mayor of Mooresville. The two dreamed of a weekly section in the Observer that would expose families and classrooms to significant developments in science and technology.

Stan had done his homework. He knew that a package produced in the Charlotte newsroom theoretically could be shared with other McClatchy papers in the Carolinas, say, The News & Observer in Raleigh or The State in Columbia. Soon he was in those cities, lobbying those editors, too.

Stan and Bill then lined up enthusiastic endorsement letters from science teachers and the presidents of major universities and community college systems across the Carolinas.

WDAV to Produce NPR World of Opera

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Lisa Gray – (704) 641-4691 or ligray@wdav.org

December 18, 2009 | DAVIDSON, NC – WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio announced today that as of January 18, 2010, the station will take over production of National Public Radio’s World of Opera, keeping in place NPR’s successful creative team of host Lisa Simeone and producer Bruce Scott. WDAV General Manager Benjamin K. Roe is the new executive producer. The show will continue to be marketed and distributed by NPR.

NPR World of Opera, carried now by 87 public radio stations across the nation, is the only radio show in America devoted to broadcasting full-length operas captured in performance from around the world. Productions from La Scala, Bayreuth, Vienna, Paris, and Geneva regularly grace NPR World of Opera’s airwaves, as well as performances from great American opera companies, including Washington National Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Glimmerglass, Santa Fe, and New York City Opera. The production team of Simeone and Scott has been together since 2002, when Roe, then NPR’s Director of Music, paired them. While this new partnership is a first for WDAV, the organization is poised for the opportunity.

“In the last 18 months, we’ve been working to re-position WDAV as a strong source for original classical music productions from the Carolinas and beyond,” explains Roe. “This partnership with NPR puts us squarely now in front of a national audience – a step we welcome. I’m especially thrilled to be reunited with Lisa Simeone and Bruce Scott — two of the most creative and dedicated talents I’ve known in my thirty years of broadcasting.”

Adds Anya Grundmann, Executive Producer for NPR Music, “We know NPR World of Opera is in good hands, given Ben Roe’s history with the show and his award-winning classical music production credits. For NPR, this arrangement lets us continue our long, proud history of supporting opera in performance, beginning with the 1972 World Premiere of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha—the work that subsequently won Joplin the first posthumous Pulitzer Prize in Music.”

About Lisa Simeone, Host of NPR World of Opera
Lisa Simeone has been the host of NPR World of Opera since July 2002. She has more than 25 years’ experience in radio and television, including as host of All Things Considered, Performance Today, Weekend Edition and the Metropolitan Opera. She also hosts the nationally syndicated Chicago Symphony Orchestra Radio Broadcast Series and the internationally syndicated documentary series Soundprint. Simeone earned a B.A. in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland and an M.A. from the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins University.

 About WDAV 89.9 Classical Public Radio
WDAV is fast becoming a national showcase for the arts in the Carolinas, thanks to its round-the-clock classical music programming, original productions, live broadcasts, commissioned concerts, video, podcasts, and social media. A service of Davidson College, WDAV’s 89.9FM signal reaches a 22-county region centered in the Charlotte, NC metro area and ranging from Rock Hill, SC to Galax, VA. WDAV’s broadcasts can be heard live online 24 hours a day at wdav.org and iTunes, as well as on any iPhone equipped with the Public Radio Player.

Boston’s Classical Shapeshifting

By Marty Ronish, Scanning The Dial
Posted December 17, 2009

Before I talk about Boston, I want to thank those of you who made suggestions about better Xmas programming. Even without actually hearing the music you suggested, I can hear it in my head and it makes me smile. The wonderful trio from Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ — wow, gorgeous. If you haven’t played it on your station yet this year, please do. And so many other great suggestions. Sounds like a lot of you are enriching your listeners.

Boston is going through growing pains with the new classical switchover from WCRB to WGBH.

UPDATE: Sorry about that. The rest of my post just disappeared overnight! Here it is.

In merging the two cultures of WCRB and WGBH, management has decided after 58 years to drop one of the two live Boston Symphony broadcasts. A blog post in the Boston Music Intelligencer, BMINT for short, has the details. Unfortunately, they decided to drop the Friday afternoon broadcast which has three times as many listeners as the Saturday evening broadcast (these figures not verified by Arbitron). Saturday evening is when we want people to be out at live concerts, so the decision is not just unfriendly to the Boston Symphony but to live music in general.

Never Listen to Céline? Radio Meter Begs to Differ

By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD
Published: December 15, 2009

American men have a naughty little secret. Sometimes, they like to relax with a little Céline Dion. Professed classical music fans have one, too: as it turns out, they don’t tune into classical radio nearly as much as they claim.

These are two of many findings shaking up the radio industry as it converts from measuring ratings through surveys to monitoring listeners electronically using so-called Portable People Meters.

As radio executives are discovering, what people say they do and what they actually do is different — especially where “My Heart Will Go On” is concerned.

That more men are mellowing out to Air Supply than are willing to admit it is a curious discovery, but the new system has serious repercussions, especially for classical radio. When 12 major areas, including New York and Los Angeles, switched to the system last year, classical radio’s market share fell 10.7 percent in those areas, a significant drop, according to a study by Research Director, a ratings consultancy.

The numbers are part of what an industry consultant, Marc Hand, calls “a smorgasbord of issues” facing commercial classical music stations. In the last year, major commercial stations including WCRB in Boston and WQXR in New York were sold to public radio operators, while KFUO in St. Louis was sold to a Christian broadcaster. (WQXR was owned by The New York Times Company.) There are now only about 20 commercial classical stations in the country, said Mr. Hand, the managing director of Public Radio Capital, which advises nonprofit stations on acquisitions.

The decline has concerned classical fans, who see radio as an important civilizing force.

“It’s education but also expanding horizons, understanding the existence of a whole host of art forms that are extremely related and important to our cultural history,” Joseph W. Polisi, president of the Juilliard School, said.

How many people are really listening?

By Mike Janssen, Scanning The Dial
Posted December 16, 2009

Hello, readers of my poor neglected blog. Apologies for not having posted for some time, but the usual deadlines have kept me away. Let’s jump right back in, though, with a look at a new way of measuring radio’s audience that is affecting all formats, including classical.

People outside the radio industry might not be aware of it, but a change is afoot in how radio stations gauge their listenership. Arbitron, the company that gathers ratings data for radio, is moving away from the paper diaries that listeners have long filled out by hand and embracing Portable People Meters — gadgets that can tune into and automatically register a radio station’s signal. This means PPMs should supposedly be more accurate, since they don’t rely on a listener’s possibly delayed or even incorrect recollection of what radio stations they listened to throughout a given day.

The move to PPMs has caused a lot of fluctuation in audience measurements, calling into question what radio stations really know about their audiences. And, as an article in yesterday’s New York Times reports, classical stations in particular have taken a beating. Classical’s share in 12 markets that introduced the PPMs last year fell by 10.7 percent.

I’d like to see more detail about a breakdown by format to help put this into context, but the Times doesn’t offer a full review. This article in Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, does delve into the effects of PPM measurement on public radio stations in particular, however. One analysis presented at this year’s Public Radio Program Directors conference found that dual-format stations — the stations that air both news and music, often classical — have suffered the largest audience declines among public stations, but that all-news stations saw a drop as well. Will PPM measurement prompt even more station to abandon the dual format, adding to a trend that showed no sign of abating this year?

For more reactions, see this letter to Current in which one program director in public radio expressed a positive attitude about the shift to PPMs. Greg Sandow also commented on the Times article on his blog.

$1.77 million could stabilize Charlotte Symphony’s future

Group only $100,000 short of its urgent fundraising target

By Karen Garloch
kgarloch@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Tuesday, Dec. 15, 2009

The struggling Charlotte Symphony is less than $100,000 away from meeting its year-end goal of raising $1.77 million to become financially stable.

If it meets the goal, the symphony expects to get $900,000 from the Arts & Science Council, which had threatened to drastically cut the symphony’s annual grant because of questions about viability.

“We are an eyelash away,” executive director Jonathan Martin said, “and I’m confident that we’re going to get there.”

ASC President Scott Provancher said his board will make its decision in January. Martin said he’s certain the symphony will meet the ASC’s expectations.

The symphony got a boost last week when Wells Fargo surprised many recession-battered charities and arts organizations in Charlotte with $6 million in gifts.

Wells Fargo’s gift of $100,000 to the symphony will go toward its operating budget, not to the $1.77 million campaign, but Martin said the bank’s vote of confidence will stimulate other donations.

Telephone solicitors seeking orchestra contributions say people answering their calls “are more receptive even in the past 48 hours,” Martin said Thursday, the day after the Wells Fargo announcement. “It’s like a mark of credibility.”In other good news, Martin said the orchestra this month reached its subscription ticket sales goal of $1.3 million, an increase over last year’s $1.25 million. It’s the third straight year the orchestra’s subscription sales have increased, he said.

“That gives us some level of confidence that there remains potential in this community for the symphony to carefully grow.

“We still have about 500 mountains to climb,” he said, “but we’re able to tell a different story right now than we were six months ago.”

Web audience grows for arts groups

By Jacqueline Trescott
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 10, 2009

Americans are increasingly choosing the Internet and other new media to enjoy the arts, a new national survey has found.

While many adults still like the intimacy of live theater, particularly musical theater, over the past year an estimated 47 million of them chose to watch or listen to music, theater or dance performances online at least once a week. The results of the National Endowment for the Arts survey of arts habits, which are scheduled for release Thursday, show that while many arts disciplines remain popular, the mode of delivery is rapidly changing.

“It sends a message to us that technology is increasing access to the arts, not only to artmaking, but also arts participation,” said Joan Shigekawa, NEA’s senior deputy chairman. “Now you are no longer geographically bound to see a live performance. Also, there is something about this technology that emboldens people to express themselves.”

In Washington, arts organizations are already responding to the public’s new habits.

For the past 12 years, the Kennedy Center has broadcast its nightly Millennium Stage performances and maintains video archives of most of those performances on its Web site. The center also posts “look-ins,” in which cast members from main-stage productions discuss their shows and methods.

Taking a cue from the movie business, both the Kennedy Center and the Shakespeare Theatre Company are posting trailers of current productions on their Web sites. STC, along with groups such as Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, are using YouTube and social-networking media as well. At Lerman, the staff has discovered that posting short clips has been successful in multiple ways. The dance audience can glimpse what the company is doing, and booking agents can also get a preview, said Ben Eiserike, the group’s communications manager.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum already has almost half of its collection digitized and online. Viewers can zoom in on a work and then listen to commentary by artists and scholars. Meanwhile, the National Gallery of Art’s Web site is undergoing a wholesale revamping, getting bells and whistles such as a mix-and-match game for young viewers that utilizes the museum’s collection. NGA uses its Web site and YouTube to circulate audio and video clips of programs and tours.

Wells Fargo’s surprise: $6 million to charities

San Francisco-based bank says gifts show a continued commitment to Charlotte as recession batters nonprofits.

By Eric Frazier
efrazier@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Wednesday, Dec. 09, 2009

When Wells Fargo officials invited heads of local nonprofit groups to their uptown bank tower for a thank-you breakfast Tuesday, Kathy Ridge showed up, as requested, just before 8.

“This is so nice,” she said, watching fellow nonprofit executives mill around the glass-walled 41st floor dining area. “And I don’t have to work the room because nobody here can give me money.”

Before it was over, the head of Mecklenburg Citizens for Public Education had eaten grits, bacon and her own words.

She walked out with a check for $500,000, part of some $6million in mostly surprise donations Wells Fargo officials announced during the breakfast.

“Oh man, what a morning!” Ridge exclaimed. “I’d really better go to the bank!”

Thank you note from a WDAV member

An email to our Development office regarding the Yo-Yo Ma contest held during the fall membership campaign:

I was the very lucky winner of the Gold Prize in your recent Yo-Yo Ma contest! I was unbelievably excited to have won this prize and, fortunately, my daughter from Winston-Salem was able to share it with me. The concert was absolutely wonderful and we will always remember Yo-Yo as a delight to hear and to watch. His interaction with the symphony (particularly the cellists) was so gracious and will long be remembered.

We enjoyed meeting the winners of the Silver Prize who were also from Winston-Salem and they shared our enthusiasm for the excellent performance. We all agreed that this was an experience of a life time.

The stay at the Dunhill was most enjoyable and fulfilled a wish that my daughter has had for many years to stay there for a night. We were well cared for and found everyone to be very obliging and helpful. We even had brief contact with Yo-Yo Ma!

Many, many thanks to WDAV for this incredible opportunity. WDAV has been a significant feature in my life for 24 years at home, in the car and in the office and I would like you to know how appreciative and grateful I am that the Charlotte area is blessed with such a wonderful and heart warming radio station. Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
WDAV Member