WRTI has the best solution
This potential disaster may be an enriching opportunity.
by Steve Cohen

What's worse than losing your favorite radio station? To some music aficionados, it's having to share your time with music that's not part of your own culture. That s what happened this week when, in the wake of WFLN's death, Temple University s WRTI-FM filled some of the void by converting itself from an all-jazz station to a hybrid: classical by day, jazz by night.

Just about every serious music lover I know is dismayed by this turn of events. But as a serious music lover myself-as well as a former manager of WRTI-allow me to suggest that this knee-jerk reaction, while understandable, is shortsighted. By accepting and broadcasting WFLN's 3,000-record classical collection, Temple University is doing the right thing, under difficult circumstances.

Only in recent years has it become a fad for radio stations to offer discrete 24-hour formats: all-news, all-sports, all-jazz, etc. But it wasn't always thus, and it isn't engraved in stone. Most TV stations don't do it. Channels 3, 6, 10 give us talk, music, news-the whole shmear.

Contrary to popular belief, WRTI wasn't always a jazz station. When I became the station's second manager-as an undergrad, in 1954-WRTI's format was all-inclusive: classics, news, public affairs, and only a very small amount of jazz. It didn't switch to all-jazz until 1969. During my year and a half in charge, we increased jazz content and brought Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ed Sauter and Bill Finegan to the station--live, in person and with their bands. During those years and into the '60s, jazz and classical intermingled on WRTI in exciting and stimulating ways.

That such cross-pollination might now occur again on WRTI (or any Philadelphia station) is largely a happy accident. When Greater Media Inc. closed WFLN, it needed a quick and gracious way to allay public wrath and dispose of FLN's record library and employees. Or maybe it wanted the tax write-off (although the financial benefit of donating 3000 CD's is minuscule). Dennis Begley, general manager of Greater Media in Philadelphia, says his company felt a civic responsibility.

Greater Media executive Tom Milewski phoned George Ingram, Temple's assistant VP for university relations, in July and offered to donate WFLN's CDs to Temple. Milewski also offered to donate WFLN's data base of listeners and sponsors. He made the identical proposal to WHYY and two other stations. Only WRTI expressed interest.

It's clearly a good deal for Temple. A major university of diverse communities can now serve two audiences instead of just one. Based on attendance at live events, classical has a much larger mass audience than jazz does.

Under the new arrangement, the Temple students who work at WRTI will receive experience with more than one form of American culture. And of course the same can be said for the former listeners of both WFLN and WRTI, assuming they're willing to listen to WRTI from here on.

WRTI's recently-hired program director Chuck Miller, employed before the FLN situation came to a head, happens to be a classical musician with extensive broadcast background in both classical and jazz. The other five RTI staffers are also professionals who can handle both formats. And under the arrangement nailed down just last Thursday, WFLN's Dave Conant became WRTI's classical coordinator and morning announcer, and two other FLN voices--Jill Pasternak and Jack Moore--were hired as announcers.

Jazz fans, of course, resent the loss of an exclusive station. Some claim betrayal and see the decision an attack on the black community. Tim Whitaker, writing in Philadelphia Weekly (Sept. 10), says that Temple is breaking a "holy trust" by cutting down "the jazz they've been playing for 45 years now," and he urges the station to "return to its roots full-time." In fact, WRTI has been jazz-dominated only for 28 years; its real roots lie in multicultural broadcasting, to which it is now returning.

Worse things have happened. Radio, as Harrison Boyle notes elsewhere on this page, radio is a vital tool for introducing novices to high culture. But it can also be a vital tool for introducing everyone to other cultures.

Can jazz and the classics co-exist? Better you should ask: Can blacks and whites co-exist? How about Jews and gentiles? The fact is that, in a shrinking world, we have no choice. The real question is: Will we embrace co-existence for the rich abundance it adds to our lives, or be dragged into it kicking and screaming?

A final thought: I'm puzzled by some writers who blame WFLN, in effect, for its own death. Folks criticize FLN for failing to attract enough listeners. Yet in the most-recent Arbitron ratings, WFLN's audience ranked 17th among 32 commercial stations. Among listeners over age 35, WFLN ranked ninth out of 32. That's not bad. In fact, WFLN's audience size of 300,000 was greater than the 225,000 claimed by WRTI-and everyone agrees that RTI has succeeded.