I read an interesting article on DigBoston.com today and it hit me so strongly that I wanted to share the author’s perspective with our readers. If you haven’t heard, Boston radio station WFNX 101.7 was recently sold to Clear Channel. Why does this matter? Why should you care? Here is what Hilary Hughes has to say…
“We can break this down a little further, if you’d like. Many may gripe about the fact that WFNX play the Black Keys and Beck and Green Day on the hour every hour, sure. I’ve cracked a joke or two at the station’s expense for that very reason and I’m not ashamed of it. WFNX also incorporates the music of local bands into it’s regular programming seamlessly, showcasing bands like Mean Creek and You Can Be A Wesley and Viva Viva alongside the Foster The Peoples and Funs and Joy Formidables that strangers to the Boston music scene may recognize.
To play a Bostonian underdog’s song before or after a major, recognizable single is a GOOD thing by association. It introduces the local band to listeners tuning into WFNX as one on par with the national hit-maker, and hey, maybe the local band will get a few more new listeners out to the show and cultivate more fans. How can that POSSIBLY be a bad thing, for the band, the local venues that support them and their growing fan base? Though there are a handful of fantastic local music programs on Boston radio stations right now–namely Boston Emissions on WZLX, which moved from WBCN after that station was sold in 2009–WFNX is the only station to keep this line between out-of-town headliner and local wunderkind blurred. To lose a station with that kind of programming, regardless of who’s writing the paychecks, is a shitty thing for the Boston music community, plain and simple.”
Here is what Stephen M. Mindich of WFNX has to say about the acquisition…
“Over the years, WFNX has done spectacular things. Since 1983 the station has played an historic role in bringing new music to audiences in and around Boston. We introduced Nirvana and Pearl Jam to wider audiences in 1991. Together with the Boston Phoenix we staged the notorious Green Day concert at the Hatch Shell in 1994. Three years later, FNX and the Phoenix organized a group reading and broadcast of Allen Ginsberg’s controversial poem Howl, featuring talents as varied as rocker Peter Wolf and Poet Lauriat Robert Pinsky, along with civil liberties attorney Harvey Silverglate and me. We’ve formed creative partnerships with local museums and many other important not-for-profit organizations such as the AIDS Action Committee. In addition, for years we broadcast One In Ten, the only program on a commercial radio station in the nation dedicated to the issues and lifestyles of the GLBT community. And throughout it all, FNX has continued to break new music, most recently the work of Foster the People, Fun, and Gotye — to name just three.
Here comes the catch….
Despite its celebrated history, its cutting edge programming , its tradition of breaking new music, its ardent fans among listeners and advertisers, for some time it has been difficult to sustain the station — especially since the start of the Great Recession. And that is why the station is being sold.”
