Classical Music in St. Louis

Late this Spring commercial classical station KFUO became Christian Contemporary. KFUO was the only full time classical music station in the market. KFUO promised to run classical music on their HD2 outlet after the format change. Since hardly anybody owns an HD set...hardly anybody is listening.  Late last week KWMU announced they were adding a few hours of classical music to their programming on Saturday night. That's not enough to satisfy the classical music fan.

Classical music has proven to be popular enough on public radio stations in St. Paul, New York, Boston, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and a few other places to be self-sustaining. These stations primarily broadcast classical music and the fan base in these markets is large enough to support these stations. Is the market large enough in St. Louis? Is there enough demand. I'm guessing the answers are yes.

According to Arbitron the St. Louis metro market has 2,308,100 listeners six and older. If a public radio station were to broadcast classical music on a full time basis, a conservative estimate of the cume rating could easily be 6% or about 139,000 cume listeners a week. If about 10% of the audience were to become members, the station might expect member revenue to be about $1.4 million. It would not be unreasonable to expect underwriting revenue to be around $300,000. Add in a community service grant and some foundation money, the station could easily expect total station revenue of about $2,000,000.

Of course, all of this hinges on the availability of an adequate FM signal in the St. Louis market. And a lot would depend on the debt load created by purchasing an existing signal, but the projected revenue could easily cover the expenses of a classical music station in St. Louis.

I should note that the Lutheran owners of KFUO got a reported $26 million when they sold their station to Joy FM. KFUO(Now KLJY) has a huge signal of 100,000 watts. The antenna is is over 1,000 feet above the terrain which makes for a broadcast radius of about 60 miles. It's an appealing signal for KLJY

St. Louis Public Radio announces classical music schedule | St. Louis Globe-Democrat

St. Louis Public Radio announces classical music schedule | St. Louis Globe-Democrat

KWMU is adding three classical music programs to its Saturday night broadcasts.

This announcement comes after the sale of KFUO to a Christian broadcaster.

KFUO typically generated a share of about 2.0%. That ranked the classical music service 20th in the market. Their ranking may not have been appealing to advertisers, but the audience size may be big enough for a self-sustaining public radio station. If there is a frequency available in the St. Louis area, there's an opportunity to serve an unserved audience.

Pfizer Shuts Down New London Research Center

Did you notice that Pfizer is shutting down the New London R&D Center? I guess all those houses torn down in the New London eminent domain case were lost for nothing.
You can hear more about the story on WNPR's website.
"Pfizer built the New London headquarters building in 2001, for an investment of more than $300m. And the city of New London agreed to acquire the nearby neighborhood of Fort Trumbull by eminent domain in order to build a complementary development – the ill-fated plan that lead to the Supreme Court case of Kelo versus New London." Pfizer says there will be no layoffs in Connecticut. The jobs at the New London site will be moved to Groton. Meanwhile KWMU reports that Pfizer is laying off 600 in St. Louis.