[Dixielandjazz] The unprofitibility of the "Arts".

[Steve Barbone]

KTPB in Kilgore, Tex., is the only classical  radio station between Dallas
and Shreveport, La. It also has jazz programming nights. What's happening to
it is a damn shame and further reinforcement of the idea that the "arts"
must find a way to be self supporting in order to survive.

Over the next 10 years, Kilgore College would receive $25 million from  the
sale to a Christian programming conglomerate versus losing $1.25 million
over that same period by continuing to subsidize the station.

Solution? Those wealthy folks in Tyler TX who like the present programming
should support it monetarily. Former Kilgore resident  Van Cliburn? Heck,
instead of talking about it, he should do a benefit concert to raise money,
etc., etc., etc. Brahms and Armstrong musical culture? Priceless.

Cheers,
Steve Barbone


In Texas, Fighting to Keep Brahms on Air

NY TIMES - By DANIEL J. WAKIN - Published: June 26, 2006

KILGORE, Tex., June 24 ‹ In this landscape of oil derricks and Rangerettes ‹
a renowned drill team dressed in smiles and miniskirts ‹ a tiny radio
station sends out a lifeline to classical music lovers in East Texas.

It is KTPB, the station of Kilgore College, which educates the children of
oil hands and other blue-collar workers. Now the college has decided it can
no longer afford to support the station and has announced its sale. The new
owner? A Christian-music broadcasting company from California, which will
pay the college $2.46 million over 10 years.

Richard Jenkins, the president of the company, EMF Broadcasting,
acknowledges that the sale has some people in the area outraged. "I know
there are some unhappy campers out there," he said. "But it always happens
with change." 

Though classical music may be a minority taste, its adherents here are
vocal. Some have formed a group, Save Our Arts Radio. They have advertised
in the local newspaper and generated at least 175 letters, many of them sent
to the Federal Communications Commission, which must still approve the deal.

"Just because we live out here in the middle of nowhere doesn't mean we have
to be a cultural void," said Nancy B. Wrenn, the executive director of the
East Texas Symphony Orchestra, based in Tyler, about 30 miles away. She
helped form the group. "This radio station has reached people who have no
other access to the arts," she said. Meanwhile, three other Christian music
stations lie just to the north on the FM dial.

The loss of a classical KTPB would be the latest footstep in the decline of
classical music radio in the United States. Doomsayers see the trend as part
of a broader diminishing of the art form, although new sources ‹ satellite
and digital radio and Internet streaming ‹ are emerging. In 1990, about 50
commercial stations were on the air; the number is closer to 30 now. About
two dozen public radio stations have cut back on classical programming to
varying degrees in the last decade, said Tom Thomas, co-chief executive of
Station Resource Group, an organization of public stations.

Kilgore's favorite son ‹ the famously reclusive pianist Van Cliburn, who
spent some of his childhood in the town ‹ has spoken out against the sale.
"There is no way to give a monetary evaluation to the world's heritage of
great music," he wrote in a letter published in The Tyler Morning Telegraph
this month. The trendy music of today is fleeting, he said, "but the
permanent, ageless masterpieces are enduring and forever." Losing the
station would be a travesty for the college, wrote Mr. Cliburn, whose name
adorns a college auditorium.

The school's trustees voted unanimously on April 20 to approve the deal. The
F.C.C.'s period for public comment ended Saturday; the commission must now
issue a ruling, but it has not set a deadline.

The school, a junior college in this town of 11,000, has been increasingly
strapped financially, and the money it was using to subsidize the station ‹
about $125,000 a year ‹ was better put toward educating students, officials
said. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides about $85,000 a year,
and donations amount to $80,000.

KTPB, the only classical music station between Dallas and Shreveport, La., a
distance of 190 miles, has about 15,000 listeners and reaches a population
of 300,000 to 400,000. Classical music plays from 6 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. during
the week; then an hour of talk and "The World" from Public Radio
International; then more music or syndicated concert programs; then music
all night. It also plays jazz, blues and swing.

In an interview, William M. Holda, Kilgore's president, said the public
share of financing for the college had declined from 87 percent of the
budget to 35 percent in the last 30 years, partly because of the drop in
value of the oil fields and the associated dip in tax revenues. He has had
to cut the work force and also trim courses, in areas like forensics,
fashion merchandising and watch repair. Meanwhile, tuition and fees are on
the rise. The college has 5,000 students, most of whom commute.

He said the college did not actively seek a buyer but was approached by a
radio station broker.

Mr. Holda also pointed out that the station has a meager 650 members.
"People want things, but they don't want to pay for them," he said. "It's
not unique to the arts."

Supporters of the station see it differently. "It's a public trust," said
Otis Carroll, a prominent Tyler lawyer and a leader of the group trying to
save the station. He and others say the college kept the negotiations quiet
until it was too late and made no attempt to ask for outside financing.

Mr. Holda pointed out that the board meeting had been advertised in the
local papers several weeks in advance.

EMF Broadcasting, which is based in Rocklin, Calif., plans to eliminate
local programming and said it would beam in a feed of its K-LOVE or AIR-1
networks, or possibly a new format. EMF began providing programming for one
affiliate in 1988, and it now owns and operates 192 stations, delivering
programming to a half-dozen more.

"The mission of the organization is to promote Judeo-Christian values and
bring people to some kind of spirituality, a closer walk toward God," Mr.
Jenkins said. He added that Texas was fertile ground for EMF. "It's just a
great, great area," he said. "People respond to our programming very, very
well."

The story of KTPB is not just Bible versus Beethoven. It has surprising
nuances. Mr. Holda of Kilgore College is a former music professor who
trained as a singer. "It's a bittersweet deal," he said, adding, "My whole
original life was in music."

The sale also means a much smaller audience for the college's sporting
events and an end to broadcasts of music from local churches. Nor are the
station's staff members a godless bunch; most say they are churchgoers.

KTPB's programming is substantial, in contrast to the easy-listening style
of many classical stations. On Friday, for example, there was the entire
Brahms "German Requiem," a Beethoven string quartet, lesser-known Liszt
piano works, music of George Butterworth and Mozart, Arthur Sullivan's Cello
Concerto, Morton Gould's "Santa Fe Saga" and Bartok's second piano sonata.

A hint of class friction also tinges the affair. Most of KTPB's listeners
and vocal supporters live in Tyler, a well-heeled city of about 90,000 that
has traditionally housed executives. Look for country clubs, not derricks.

On the other hand, the trustees who voted to sell the station live in
Kilgore College's tax district. They include a broker, a banker, a
lumberyard owner, a former Kilgore College football coach, a pharmacist and
an auto mechanic.

If the station goes, "it makes us a small town," said Cris Selman, a 90-
year-old woman who is a pillar of Tyler's cultural scene.

Kilgore, where oil was struck in 1930, is at the center of the East Texas
oil patch. Working wells are common in the area, but most of the big
derricks in town are ornamental, monuments to one of the world's biggest oil
bounties. Its other famous (and energy-producing) export are the college's
Rangerettes, who started performing in 1940. Attired in white Western hats
and boots, blue skirts and red tops, they have appeared at bowl games and
presidential inauguration festivities.

Kilgore College was founded in 1935 to give the newly booming town some
gravitas. It has strong vocational programs, and is also the home of the
respected Texas Shakespeare Festival. Nearby Longview has an orchestra of
its own, a small opera company and an art museum.

The loss of KTPB would leave the Tyler folks the most bereft (to the east,
some receive Shreveport's public radio station). No more Metropolitan Opera
broadcasts. No more New York Philharmonic.

Moreover, KTPB is a cultural glue, sponsoring events for children and
broadcasting some 50 local concerts a year, including those of the Longview
and East Texas orchestras and their guest soloists.

KTPB has five full-time employees, and they have struggled to remain
neutral. "It really is like a grieving process," said Kathy A. Housby, the
general manager and afternoon on-air host, who has been at the station for
all of its 15 years.

Just a year ago, the station moved into a one-story renovated yellow brick
building opposite the First Presbyterian Church. Its old site was used for a
$5-million new residence for the Rangerettes, who have their own museum on
campus, and a motto: "Beauty knows no pain."