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Continued decline of Classical FM in Los Angeles- KMZT gone Country, KUSC jumping on the commercial and stupidity wagon

Posted by Bambi B (A) on March 16, 2007 at 11:34:51

Mates,

I haven't heard statstics in a while but Los Angeles I think has the largest radio market in the US- it's all those millions of man hours per day sitting in traffic!

Last week or so, KMZT FM 105.1 - the last commercial Classical station in Los Angeles and after many interations over decades years, became of all things a Country station. I find this switch extremely depressing as it signals the continued stupification of culture in L.A. for commercial reasons. I'm all for maximising profits in a business, but art, to me is in a special category that, becaseu of the smaller number of people that are serious, needs a biut of affirmative action. A casual flip of Classical to Country means the owners are not interested in content, only advertising revenues. So, be it, the job is done.

But the news is worse as the larger public radio Classical station , KUDSC 91.5 FM is taking the vapid train in some miscalculated effort to attract listeners. I thought the return of Gail Eichenthal, who was a great JUSC annuncer in the 80's would return KUSC to a hifgher standard, but I can only conjecture she's become a meth addict in the meantime- she talks extremely fast, loudly, and all the time- quite reluctant to play music. Her art in L.A. programme is not bad, but the constant concentration on Broadway musical revivals and goofy plays starts to grate after 20 miunutes with her fast talking style. There is no attempt at criticism either, one gets the idea there is money changing hands as everything is promoted positively. This is part of what id called the "culture cringe" of Los Angeles as there ae people who constantly try to assert L.A is as culturally as active and important than New York and this kind of programme only serves to heighten awareness of this desperate insecurity.

KUSC is quickly converting to talk radio and they manage to gab all the time- and the stupid promotions of, "Escape to World-class" music -as though music is some kind of anaesthetic or soporific is moronic and they run these self-advertisements between every piece of music.

They have also violated their old principle of playing only complete works and they were announciung this rule for decades, but now, I hear more and more single movements.

The other new idea is to somtimes play a piece without announcing it and/or skippoing over who's playing until after- another sing of their new popularisation programme.

Then, there are simple adverts- did you know there's a Lexus with an 8-speeed automatic? - I do becuase If I listened to KUSC for three hours, I'd hear about that damn automatic transimmsion 10 times. And worse, the cancer clinic ads make my skin crawl. "Take your tumours over to Bob's for their half-off "Lump-X" treatment offer. Free parking!" At least the 3 times hourly car donation ads have stopped for now- I think KUSC is letting KCRW work that for awhile. Btw, that promotion apparently made a lot of money, but is success the only measure of success? I heard once that the USC business sbhool had a sign posted, "What does the UCLA business graduate call a USC graduate?" -The answer - "Boss" and this attitude of superior business acumen seems to spill over into KUSC -noisily. Oddly, almost all the USC graduates I've met do have their own businesses- USC is real free enterprise promoter.

The current crop of announcers too are almost completely devoid of personality except to conecentrate on the personal and the sensational when introducing the music. From KUSC, one gets the notion that composers were ego-maniacs that reluctantly tossed something off to pay creditors or escape from unhappy personal lives ofmiserable poverty and frustration. Of course an artist's suffering is important to create a creative contect, but this is dumbing down attempt to create a soap opera from grand opera. I don't know where they found these people- one is supposed to have a doctorate in musicology, but it baffels me which, they're all twits.

All twits, except the wonderful and knowledgable Duff Murphy, whose opera show seems immune from puching the KUSC corporate line. By the way, Murphy is an attorney and not a full time announcer- smrt, personal, passionate and knowledgable as hell.

The head twit is Jim Swedja who is the only long-time survivor and who must have complete control over content of his programmes. Swedja's taste in music is very good, but he's so intenesly egocentric he makes everything about him and when he interviews he spends the whole show alternately sucking up with hyperbolic praise and then trying to prove he knows more than the person interviewed with comments and anecdotes. Twyla Tharp once really let him have it- and it was a pleasure- other KUSC listeners I know still talk about the satisfaction of this far too rare comeuppance. Most artists interviewed are too interested in promotion- and polite- to criticise or oppose an interviewer, so he gets away with the smarm year after year. That was however three of four years ago and Swedja still carries on. HJe also has the crappiest sense of humour and thinks his accented imitations of Beethoven cute, but it's all on a 13 year old level and devoid of humour. When he moves into the sexual comments my skin really crawls as his regular proclamations of adolescent heterosexuality are embarassing. I'm reasonably sure Swedja isn't gay- I've met and seen him at a couple of Ojai Festival press functions and he the way he dresses is a sure sign. But, someone should tell him about the affect of "protesting too much". Swedja is also a film critic although I don't where he writes or broadcasts comments- and he consequently treats film music in the same vein as Classical concert music and his James Horner, John Williams et al suck up episodes are embarassing as well. I don't understand why KUSC thinks that just because there are violins- and Los Angeles is a show biz town, KUSC listeners take it seriously and classical listeners are so vague about their musical preference as to consider film music in the same way- it's an insult to intelligence. In my view, if it's not on the Prokofiev or Bax level, film music is vapid background music with no business on a classical station. Finally, Swedja has the some kind of right wing political agenda and sometimes makes weird, strident proclamations of his immunity to political correctness- the great artist is above this. I haven't heard this as much lately, so possibly he's under orders.

With the demise of KMZT, there is another announcer, like Gail Eichenthal, returning to KUSC from the old days out of work, Rich Caparella. Caparella was a fine announcer in the old days, but years at a commercial station has pushed him into a fast, commercial style- a kind of of energetic patter style and his mildly self-depreacting comments seems forced and coy. His refined carny speech pattern will be a strong force for the pledge drives though. Caparella is a very smart guy though and we can only hope he relaxes and moves away from the patter mode.

The last part of the KUSC rant is something that is almost the most annoying feature of KUSC to me. This is the way the announcers' voices are over boosted. I use a Revox B160 which, like other "B" series Revox tuners was designed with acting as a broadcast monitor in mind. Subepsequent tries with aMCIntosh MR77 and MR67 confirmed this. There will be a very quiet piece like a lute piece and then the 100dB adverts and promotions. I wrote the mamger of KUSC about this and joking suggested that the reason must be that KUSC thinks the listeners are old , deaf people, and replied alonm ght lines that yes, most pele after 40 have hearing loss. Of ocurse, the real reason is that KUSC wants the voices to be clear in the car. Appreantly, they don;t understand that if the listener adjusts the volume to hear the quietest passages clearly, the loud passages and even more the announcers' voices, will blast. In my view, this means KUSC considers that the crappy announcing ads, and promotions should take priority over the music.

The music too has deteriorated into the same warhorses over and over. I'm not a very consistent KUSC listener for all these reasons, but I still heard Beethoven's 7th three times in two weeks. A great work but the "top 100" programming is boring as hell. There's a fluckin 100 years of music to play and it's seems it's the same few again and again. This, like th idiotic film music and Broadway stuff, is an example of how desperately trying to pander to the largest possible audience - and collect money- can backfire as you can end not pleasing anyone.

KUSC has also cut almost all outside programming: "A Prarie Home Companion", "Pipedreams", and most importantly "St. Paul Sunday Morning" all gone, possibly to save money to pay the manager's salary which someone told me is over $100,000 per year. St. Paul Sunday was just excellent and though it's replacement Sacred Classics is well done, it doesn't have the range and intensity of St. Paul by any stretch and is all just spinning CDs whereas ST, Paul was recorded live and has just enough interview and talk. "pipedreams too is fantastic and though I admit that might be a little specialised as not everyone loves organ music, it so intellegent and wide-ranging within oit's own world, it's great listening. I have to strseam a fairly low quality sound to hear it.

The only bright spot in Los Angeles Classical radio at the moment is KCSN 81.5 which has calm announcers who consistently play more modern and conteprary music and the talking is kept informative while not over doing it. It's too bad KCSN only has Classical on weekdays during the day, but it's by far the best Classical station now and they are getting a new transmitter/repeater to get full coverage on the Westside. KSCN by the way streams at KSCN.org and you might like to try it. I should mention that I had an association with KCSN 1994 until 2001.

In December I bought a nice McIntosh MR67 tube tuner and with the purchase, NOS tubes, and service I expect it will eventually cost about $900. With the demise of KMZT, the decline of KUSC, and the gradual switch to digital broadcast I'm considering selling it and buying a used Marantz 6000 for $150 and putting the rest of the money into a Rega Planet or something. If I abandon the MR67 project, I'll send $20 to KUSC with a note of explanation as a "thank you" for saving me time and money.

A sad state of affairs out in the Wild West!

Cheers,

Bambi B

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