Reply #7: We used to have two choices in the Twin Cities:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

KSJN, one of the NPR stations, and WCAL, which was owned by St. Olaf College.

However, a few months ago, Minnesota Public Radio bought WCAL in a backroom deal that took everyone by surprise, including the employees and other stakeholders. The official story is that this "saved" the station from being bought by a fundamentalist broadcaster, but in fact, the station was not for sale before MPR made its offer.

I really liked WCAL, because it carried Performance Today and From the Top, and did a lot for local classical musicians, such as interviewing them and broadcasting recordings of their concerts. That's all gone.

What MPR did with WCAL was simulcast KSJN's programming for a few months, and then, just this week, it premiered its new service, which is very much like a college radio station, only more professional sounding. It's not bad, but I hate the fact that WCAL was sacrificed to make room for it.

However, for those of you in the Pacific Northwest, there's KBPS-FM, 89.9 Portland, an indpendent non-commercial station that plays mostly locally programmed classical music 24 hours a day. I used to volunteer for them, and they're good people. They're available online at

http://www.allclassical.org