WCPE in the News

August 18, 2001

WUNC opts to stop the sonatas
All news-talk format to begin Labor Day

By Adrienne M. Johnson; STAFF WRITER

WUNC-FM, the Triangle's dominant public radio station, is abandoning Bach and Beethoven for banter and the BBC. At 9 a.m. Sept. 3 -- Labor Day -- the public radio station will launch a 24-hour mix of local, national and international news, along with public affairs, interview and call-in programs.

More than a dozen new programs, produced both locally and by outlets such as National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Corp., will be in the mix.

The change will make WCPE-FM, based in Wake Forest, the region's only classical music option for radio listeners.

Joan Siefert Rose, WUNC's general manager, said the new format would distinguish WUNC in the market. "Twenty-five years ago, we could be all things to all people," she said. "Nowadays, people use radio differently. They want one thing consistently."

About 200,000 people in 28 counties listen to WUNC, but most of the listenership is in the Triangle.

WUNC has been adding news and information since the early '90s; in 1995, two hours of music were lost when NPR's "All Things Considered" changed times and "Talk of the Nation" was added. Former WUNC general manager Bill Davis said news and talk democratized the station, helping more listeners relate to it.

That need became urgent when WCPE, which is supported by listener contributions, improved its signal strength. Rose said research showed that most of WUNC's classical listeners were switching to WCPE, which plays classical music 24 hours a day, rather than in morning and evening blocks, as WUNC does.

As a result, she said, many listeners were already using WUNC as their radio news and information source. "We consider this giving listeners more of what they really tune to the station for," she said.

From her office at WCPE, general manager Deborah Proctor expressed delight: "If I was the captain of WUNC, this would have been done years ago. It's the best thing for that station; it's the best thing for WCPE. ... It's good for public radio: with each public radio station being good at one thing and doing one thing well. It's excellent."

WUNC, which is owned by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, isn't abandoning music altogether. Two locally produced music programs, the long-running bluegrass show called "Back Porch Music" and the Celtic-themed "Thistle and Shamrock," will continue to air on weekends.

The station will add a Friday local edition of the popular, nationally syndicated "People's Pharmacy," with Joe and Terry Graedon. And its weekend talk offering, "The State of Things," will expand by four hours, airing new conversations at noon Mondays through Thursdays. The station also has added two local reporters to provide news inserts throughout the day.

Although the format change had been rumored in radio circles for years, speculation increased when Rose was hired in December. Her previous job was at Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor, which has a news-and-information format.

For the last decade or so, WUNC has been a powerhouse among NPR stations, landing in the top five in total individual and corporate support and ranking at the top nationally in audience share, or the percentage of radio listeners who are tuned in to a particular station.

Rose acknowledged that such support, which helped finance an expanded news team and a bigger station, might have come from classical music fans. "Some people won't be happy about the change, but I think the great majority will be happy because there is a good alternative in this market," she said. Many people new to the Triangle, she said, are probably surprised that the format isn't available on the FM dial.

On Friday, listeners had mixed response to the news.

John Hanks, a retired Duke University music professor, wasn't pleased. Still, he said, he wouldn't automatically turn the dial. "It think it's a mistake," Hanks said. "I'll have to give it a try and see what I think."

Arthur Finn, 67, a retired UNC medical school professor, had stopped contributing to the station in 1995 because he thought it had dumbed down its classical programming. He said he was shocked to hear of the all-talk format.

"It's not that I mind the talk," he said. "But I also like the music. That's going to rob me of music. I'm crushed."

But Ellen O'Brien Virchick, an interior decorator who lives in Carrboro, called the news "fabulous."

"I am not a musicologist. I think that there are so many stations that are doing the music. WCPE does classical music a whole lot better than 'UNC was doing. I think anybody who wants to listen to classical music can really be served by 'CPE."

Staff writer Geoff Edgers contributed to this report.

Staff writer Adrienne M. Johnson can be reached at 829-4751 or adriennj@newsobserver.com

Copyright 2001 by The News & Observer Pub. Co.

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