Public and the radio

Change may be inevitable in all things, including radio programming. The angry public response to recent changes in Maine Public Radio programming suggests it sometimes also can be inexplicable.

Those changes, essentially a downsizing of the station’s commitment to classical music, will become apparent next week when weekday afternoon music is replaced by talk programs. It will become obvious next weekend when the 61st season of live Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinee broadcasts begins. Instead of the season-opening gala preview of the 20-week Met season, Maine Public Radio will air talk, some canned pop and folk music programs and more talk.

In time, these changes may, as station officials hope, attract a new breed of public radio listener. For now, however, they are repulsing the current breed, including many of the station’s most energetic and ardent supporters and contributors. The wave of negative reaction has grown to the point where MPR should reconsider.

Particularly when it comes to the Met broadcasts. This is truly unique programming, the result of a 60-year marriage between the world’s most famous opera house and one of the world’s largest corporations. Texaco has underwritten the cost of these live broadcasts since they began in 1940 and the running tab now tops $200 million. The broadcasts are made available at no cost whatsoever to radio stations, commercial and public, with only one condition – that they be aired as they occur, live and unedited.

MPR says it would like to continue offering the Met and hints that Texaco and the Met are to blame for not allowing the performances to be taped and broadcast at different – that is, less obtrusive – times. This sounds like ingratitude and indicates a profound misunderstanding of the very special nature of live performance. MPR also hints that negotiations with the Met on this matter are ongoing and may lead to a compromise. This is either wishful thinking on the station’s part or an intentionally misleading attempt to calm riled listeners. Both Texaco and the Met have made it perfectly clear for years that stations either air the performances live or not at all. More than 350 stations comply with that straightforward condition. It is absurd to think that one small station in one small state could cause a reversal.

Longtime MPR listeners and supporters are angry and for two very good reasons. First, the station conducted one of its week-long fund drives just before this significant programming shift was announced yet made no mention of it. Second, and even more offensively, station officials say the loss of the Met broadcasts is not terribly significant because most listeners, those who live in Southern and Midcoast Maine, can pick it up on a commercial station. After so many years of being told how important they are during fund drives and bond referendums, Northern Mainers are understandably dismayed to learn otherwise.

Public radio’s reputation of being different and indispensable was built largely upon classical music, yet public radio stations throughout the country have been reducing classical music programming for years. Some have brought about change and somehow managed to strike an acceptable balance between program genres. Some have not. Few have done it as artlessly as Maine Public Radio.