Word: wbms
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Dates: during 1949-1949
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...Recordings made this fall during the lecturer of Seymour E. Harris '20, professor of Economics, in his course "Economics for the Citizen" will be broadcast from 7:30 to 8 p.m. over WBMS-FM on Wednesday and Saturdays beginning this week. The program is part of a new public education program sponsored by the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council...
...until last summer, when WBMS changed management, its history was written in red ink. The first year and a half had been glorious--from the listener's point of view. The station played good music, and lots of it. There were hour-long programs of symphonic works, virtually free of commercials. Best known, and probably best like of these programs was the Endowment Series which lasted a full three hours, uninterrupted except for brief program notes. The Endowment Series made possible the playing of exceptionally long works, such as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and the Brahms Requiem. And except...
Unfortunately, WBMS steadily lost money. The Endowment Series (which was "endowed" in name only) alone cost Templeton $117,000--money that will never be recovered. Faced with this big loss, Templeton sold WBMS in July, 1948, to a Steubenville, Ohio, company that operates a group of Eastern radio stations...
Since the transaction, WBMS has gone toward the black--and, in the opinion of many of its listeners, gone downhill as well. Its programs rely heavily on the playing of short, and often inferior Rombergish selections, and are surfeited with mediocre commercials. Longer symphonic works mean less space for commercial plugs, and have therefore dropped to second place in programming. Listener reaction has been sharp: "The trouble is," says Program Director John Thornton, "that people expect a lot, and give nothing in return. When the Endowment Series was discontinued, we received over a thousand letters from our listeners...
...present economic condition, WBMS can do little to change its commercial policy. It must take what it can get. WQXR, a similar station in New York, does broadcast better commercials in smaller numbers; but WQXR has a potential listening audience three times that of WBMS, and in addition is partially subsidized by the New York Times. Taking its condition into account, however, WBMS could still make some improvement. A sizable portion of "The World's Most Beautiful Music" is short enough to conform to the dictates of radio business policy. Not many Mozart or Haydn symphonies, for example, are over...