Category: Cartoons, Commentary/Editorial || By

I will admit to being a jazz partisan, and a fan of the soon-to-be-gone jazz format on Pittsburgh's WDUQ-FM (90.5). This week, I've been listening to hosts do their farewell shows. It's been like visiting a friend on his deathbed.

But I'm also a fan of local news. So if someone had told me that I'd be unhappy that Pittsburgh was getting a new all-news radio station, I would have been surprised.

And yet I am unhappy --- unhappy at the shabby way that Duquesne University handled the sale, and unhappy at the abuse that has been heaped on the heads of jazz fans by partisans of WYEP-FM (91.3), which is acquiring the 90.5 frequency.

. . .

A lot of bull puckey has been shoveled, especially by WYEP and its financial partners. In fact, to find a larger steaming pile of sanctimony, you'd have to look at the last time a Pittsburgh public broadcasting station was "destroyed in order to save it" --- a decade ago, when WQED-TV blew up WQEX-TV.

Then, as now, Pittsburgh's real elites --- the people who control its major foundations and establishment institutions --- have smugly responded to objections from the station's audience by telling us they were actually doing us a favor.

Then, as now, a group of opponents proposed an alternative plan and were ignored or ridiculed by well-funded people who view themselves as the region's cultural arbiters.

Back then, unhappy WQEX viewers were promised that WQED-TV would use the money from a WQEX sale to program lots of edgy, local programming on its digital "HD" TV channels.

What did we actually get on HD from WQED-TV? One digital channel devoted to cooking programs, and another which endlessly reruns the station's nostalgia programs. Ooh! Edgy? Not!

Today, unhappy WDUQ listeners are being promised that WYEP will program lots of jazz on 90.5's digital "HD" channel. Well, it sure seems like history is repeating itself.

. . .

Some people have criticized WDUQ's jazz for being too mainstream. "Where's the free-form, improvisational jazz? Where's the hard bop?" Others have claimed that jazz music doesn't pull high enough ratings, and that an all-talk station will have a larger audience.

Well, you can't have it both ways. Yes, WDUQ programmed a lot of straight-ahead, mainstream jazz. But you can't criticize WDUQ for trying to reach a mass audience, and then turn around and fault WDUQ for not programming music that would have alienated that audience! Do you want it to be artistically pure, or reach more people?

And come to think of it, non-commercial, public radio stations shouldn't be worried about the size of their audiences. By definition, non-commercial broadcasting was invented to broadcast things that aren't being heard on commercial stations --- such as classical music and jazz.

(Besides, former WDUQ general manager Scott Hanley has already demolished the argument that the jazz doesn't get good ratings.)

. . .

If we're to criticize WDUQ's jazz for being too mainstream, then the question could --- and should --- be asked whether WYEP is providing a public service. It programs a very, very commercial-sounding adult-alternative rock format with a tight playlist.

The station that brags that it's the place "where the music matters" plays such cutting-edge artists as Paul Simon, Tom Petty, David Bowie and The Police --- none of whom are unknown, and whose music can be regularly heard on many commercial stations.

If WYEP's management is suddenly so interested in news and public affairs, why isn't WYEP going to an all-NPR "news and information" format, and leaving WDUQ to play jazz --- a format which supposedly doesn't attract a mass audience, and thus would be non-commercial by its very nature?

. . .

As for Duquesne University, it has been complaining that it can't afford to subsidize WDUQ. Yet it subsidizes such activities as basketball and the Tamburitzans. Did WDUQ's mix of jazz and news provide less of a public service than the Dukes and the Tammies?

Frankly, Duquesne has also been no friend of journalistic independence over the years, both at WDUQ and at its student newspaper, and has had some public and nasty fights recently with the radio station.

Given the fact that Duquesne refused to negotiate with the station's former management over a possible employee buyout, it's hard not to wonder if this sale was done as much for political reasons (and spite) as for financial ones.

. . .

The format change itself has little to do with jazz's popularity (or lack of popularity), or the quality of WDUQ's particular blend of jazz. Instead, it has everything to do with underwriters (read "advertisers") --- both locally and nationally --- who want their underwriting messages ("commercials") to air in Pittsburgh.

"Essential Public Media" --- the organization formed by WYEP to takeover WDUQ --- is getting its money for the WYEP takeover from "Public Radio Capital," which has close ties to NPR, and which has been working to turn other college-owned radio stations into full-time NPR outlets.

Some of NPR's big national talk shows are not clearing in Pittsburgh, the country's 25th-largest radio market, and NPR wants that situation to end, as it --- with PRC's help --- apparently builds a nationwide network of news-talk stations.

Those of you who still think of NPR as a bunch of tie-dyed hippies are 30 years behind the times. A network which gets its sponsorship (oops, sorry, "underwriting") from such corporations as Allstate, Archer Daniels Midland, General Electric, MetLife and Merck isn't exactly a left-wing radical outfit.

Last year, it changed its name from "National Public Radio" to simply the initials "NPR," and said the move was being made to show that "NPR" was now an international service that did more than just radio. Personally, I sometimes think they wanted to remove the "public" part of their name.

. . .

The new 90.5 is going to sound like a lot of other all-talk NPR stations across the country. It will be scrupulously (almost painfully) balanced, with dry, droll hosts who present center-moderate opinions aimed squarely at well-educated middle-class suburbanites.

To paraphrase an old joke about the New York Times, you could switch the management of NPR with the management of a bank, and nothing would change at either place.

The new 90.5 will carry about six hours per week of local content: "Essential Pittsburgh," a daily hour-long local talk show, and "Sounds of the City," a weekly "feature program broadcasting an 'audio collage' of sound bites and stories."

An audio collage? Whoa, now that will be edgy and controversial. (Ooh, Smithers, save me from the audio collages!)

. . .

It's true that jazz fans have been told they will be able to find their music on WDUQ's HD stream, or on the Internet. But we can turn that one around, can't we? Couldn't NPR fans find their favorite talk programs on the Internet or Sirius XM satellite radio?

Pittsburgh gave rise to many of the world's great jazz artists and composers. If WYEP and Essential Public Media were blowing up WDUQ to create a better jazz station, there'd be no reason to complain.

But they're blowing it up for a cookie-cutter NPR talk station running a bunch of nationally syndicated, Inside-the-Beltway talk shows. Sorry. It hardly sounds like an upgrade to me.

. . .

Full disclosure: The author is a volunteer at Pittsburgh's WRCT-FM (88.3). However, editorials at Tube City Almanac express the opinions of individual authors, and do not reflect those of any other organization, or of Tube City Community Media Inc., its volunteers or its board of directors.

Tube City Community Media is committed to printing viewpoints from residents of the McKeesport area and surrounding municipalities. Commentaries are accepted at the discretion of the editor and may be edited for content or length.

To submit a commentary for consideration, please write to P.O. Box 94, McKeesport 15134, or email tubecitytiger@gmail.com. Include contact information and your real name. A pen name may be substituted with approval of the editor.

You are previewing your comment. Be sure to click on 'Post Comment' to store it.