ANOTHER COMMERCIAL CLASSICAL STATION GOES NON-PROFIT

posted by James Reel

KING-FM, Seattle's longtime classical radio outlet, can no longer support itself with advertising. But rather than change formats to some more lucrative, audience-grubbing strand of popular music, the station is switching to a non-profit model and retaining its classical programming. I don't know whether this is because the people running the station truly believe in classical music, or because the station has an unusual ownership arrangement:

KING-FM was founded in 1948 by King Broadcasting founder Dorothy Stimson Bullitt. In 1995, her two daughters donated the station to a nonprofit organization owned by the Seattle Opera, the Seattle Symphony and what is now ArtsFund, in the hope of keeping classical-music radio alive in Seattle. Over the years, KING-FM has paid nearly $7 million in dividends to those three organizations. But dividends have declined since reaching a peak in 1999 and this year, for the first time, the station is projecting zero dividends.

You can find the full article here. Whatever the motivation, it's good news that KING will not become just one more classical station playing its own Requiem.