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St. Louis has lost it's only classical music station.

That's awful! I would think a station in a city the size of St. Louis would be able to stay afloat easily, but apparently not...

Especially in a town with a well-regarded orchestra. (At least it used to be)

Especially in a town considered to be so European that it is perhaps best known as the American home for the famous Belgian beer brewer Anheuser Busch Inbev!

Who listens to the radio anymore?

LOL.

People who drive for a living.

And people who just drive.

That's terrible. I would go mad without ABC Classic FM....

Remember, it's not that they can't make money at classical it's that there's a lot more money in: AOR, new country, religious and talk formats.

K*

I've been living in the California Bay Area for 10+ years, and I feel as if we've never had a classical station. (Unless I want to listen to mostly baroque movement excerpts programmed to "relax" me.)

And yet, with internet radio, youtube and online streaming services, I now get even more diverse and exciting musical exposure than I did growing up with a truly wonderful radio station (Chicago's WFMT).

-J

Fortunately there's still a classical music radio station in my town.

Like newspapers, radio stations are caught in the difficult transition between local and internet distribution. Some will make the transition, many will not.

I think radio is dying generally - a victim of the drive to maximum profit. The expertise of the people doing the programming at these stations is one of the biggest losses.

The (radio) wave of the future!

Very sorry- probably because the station couldn't get a sponsor?

Seattle's KING-FM is doing very well, though there are an awful lot of commercials. Someone has to pay for it I suppose.

What are you doing in America? I thought you hated us! Seriously though, it was kind of Classical-light already. Now it seems to be a Christian rock station. Thank science/god/Algore there is the internet, though it doesn't work in my car.

Over here we have BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM. Radio 3 seems to have a bit of a bias towards opera and choral stuff (not my cup of tea) and Classic FM has adverts (which I hate) and is a bit of a 'lite' station. Interestingly (or not) Classic FM is compressed and 3 isn't - which makes 3 pretty useless in the car.

Cincinnati is always in danger of losing its classical music station. They have a financial deficit but have been able to weather the storm so far. The problem is that rednecks and other undereducated people out there do not listen to public radio as they think it is seditious and morally depraved.

I am indebted to public radio as it was one of the primary tools for improving my English (talk radio, of course, not music). Only reading books has helped me even more.

This is very sad news indeed. A city the side of St. Louis should have a Classical station - at the very least a part time Classical station.

I must admit, however, I seldom listen to Cleveland's full-time Classical station: WCLV. Their programming is largely restricted to the top-40 pop classics (e.g., Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Brandenburg Concertos, etc). So, the only time I turn to them is for special events like the local piano competition or broadcasts of the Cleveland Orchestra. A further problem is that the broadcasts are dynamically compressed, and the sound quality suffers.

There's also a part-time Classical station, WKSU, part fo the NPR family, which plays almost all baroque music alog with some NPR non-musical programming.

Finally, there is a classical channel on AT&T U-verse, but I discovered it just plays the same music over & over again on a 3-hour loop.

I guess the above is better than nothing. But I find myself turing to my own music collection or the library more often.