To: Board of Trustees, WGBH Educational Foundation and Clerk, Federal Communications Commission
WGBH & FCC: Restore full-time music on WGBH-FM Boston's high power public radio station!
For sixty years, Boston's WGBH-FM (89.7 MHz) was a beacon for good music of all kinds: classical, jazz, blues and folk. It has now dumped nearly all of its music programming to duplicate another Boston NPR station's news/talk format all day every day (with repeats most nights). If WGBH is not willing to dedicate that clear powerful signal to airing good music, someone else should be allowed to do so.
Why is this important?
Since 1951, WGBH Boston's high-power 89.7 FM has been a regional beacon for good music, soliciting donations on that basis. Five years ago classical was exiled to a weak suburban station with dumbed-down programming, firing its leading classical host, Richard Kniseley - and folk and blues were dropped entirely - in order to duplicate the other Boston NPR station's news/talk format in the daytime. Two years ago, its widely-popular Jazz with Eric in the Evening was canceled during the week and isolated to weekends, and its jazz archivist, producer and host Steve Schwartz fired, so that the station could replay its daytime talk shows at night. If WGBH won't go back to its original mission of providing the best music on the most powerful transmitter in New England, it should step aside and let someone else do so.