Holy smokes! I just did the math, and I’ve been broadcasting music on the radio for 36-some years!
To all of you who have been private messaging me and posting your comments here on Facebook, thank you for your support. It means a lot that you will miss “Picture Perfect” and/or “The Lost Chord” (both of which aired their last on WWFM this past weekend). Some of you are curious to know more. I have tried to include all the relevant information below, without pointing fingers and with emotional restraint.
I will say the decision to end the programs was not mine. I was emailed by WWFM’s program director the afternoon of Wednesday, April 19, and notified that the shows would be “sunsetting,” with “Picture Perfect” concluding its weekly run on April 29 (ten days later) and “The Lost Chord” ending on April 30.
The reason I was given is that those who make these decisions would like to refresh the program schedule. You can’t really argue with that. However, it would have been nice had I been given the option to help freshen it up by creating some new shows!
Needless to say, I put a lot into these broadcasts, and I have done so for quite a long while (“Picture Perfect” for 13 years; “The Lost Chord” for 20).
A combination of COVID-19 safety restrictions and budgetary considerations have kept me out of the WWFM studios for the past three years. During that time, a skeleton crew of managers have had to lean heavily on syndicated programming, automation, and remote control to maintain a 24-hour schedule. Which is why suddenly a lot of unfamiliar voices started to pop up and why you’re not getting a lot of weather forecasts, time checks, or community representation.
Unfortunately, you’re also not hearing very many complete pieces of music, as the trend with the principal service being relied upon is toward sound bites and pretty melodies without a lot of depth or space for reflection.
The reasons for this are complex, and I am not placing blame. The station is affiliated with a college, the first priority of which must necessarily be admissions. There’s no reason to start paying more people to improve the radio broadcasts of a station that, to an undiscerning ear, seems to be functioning just fine without them. It’s not the college’s primary mission and therefore non-essential. I can live with that.
However, my not being able to use the production studios during all that time means that I have not been able to produce new content.
As the months and years passed, I continued to select archived episodes of “Picture Perfect” and “The Lost Chord” for rebroadcast, touching them up at home to remove any time-sensitive material or to tailor them to important anniversaries. I do not have a home studio (which I will be remedying very soon), so any extensive new recording would have to be done at the station.
If there was a concern about the reruns becoming stale, I was never told, and I would have been happy to produce new episodes with authorized access to the station equipment.
I should add, at the time of the Picture Perfect “sunset” notification, I was given the option to start producing new shows on a once-a-month basis – for “Picture Perfect” only. Whether or not that means I would now be able to resume recording at the WWFM studios was not made clear. What was made clear was that I would receive no monetary compensation for my work and that the program would air in rotation with three other WWFM specialty programs on Friday evenings at 6:00.
This I declined to do, for several reasons. To put all that work into producing a polished program that would only air on a first-Friday schedule would be foolhardy. Listeners would never remember to tune in, it’s no way to build an audience, and for hardcore film music fans, it would be death by starvation. Having to wait a month to hear your favorite music doesn’t exactly convey a sense that the station cares very much about it.
To make it worthwhile, the show would have to be produced weekly or not at all. “Picture Perfect” is not a “pops” show. You will never hear kitschy arrangements of movie themes, lazily strung together, as if these are in some way representative of the actual scores. It’s a serious film music show that honors the integrity of the music and the composers.
As for pay, I’m a professional, but I have not received monetary compensation for “Picture Perfect” or “The Lost Chord” for years. Granted, for most of their run, I was paid for the production of recorded shows, but at a point, when we were looking for ways to tighten up the budget, it was agreed by everyone that those of us who produced specialty shows would attempt to get underwriters to support them. Which means we would only be paid for them if there was an underwriter.
Unfortunately, the way it was handled, it turned out to be a cumbersome system that didn’t really give me the authority to work out a deal. Instead, I was a basically a go-between, and I’ve had at least one prospective coalition collapse because of it.
At this point, I am basically resigned to the shows being taken off the air. However, if there are any “angels” reading this who are interested in underwriting (meaning a serious commitment, not just a week or two), it’s possible the station could be persuaded to reinstate them, with me providing fresh content. Should that be the case, please contact the station. I am not in a position from which I can simply walk into a room and discuss it with anyone. If you would like to split the cost with other contributors, tell the station so, by phone or email, and maybe they’ll be able to put together a deal for you.
This is not an attempt to incite a bunch of angry villagers to storm the castle with their torches, but if there’s anything else you’d care to express on the matter, you can contact the station manager/program director, Alice Weiss, at alice@wwfm.org. There’s also a phone number on the WWFM website. PLEASE NOTE: If you write to the info@wwfm.org address, in all likelihood it will only get lost.
Of course, your opinions will carry more weight if you happen to be a financial supporter of the station. But volume also speaks. If a lot of you like the show(s), and you let them know, they may be inclined to keep one of them. But frankly, if it isn’t the case, I’m ready to pack up my wagon and roll on to the next opportunity.
Again, I am happy that my work has meant enough to you that you’ve read this far. And I am grateful to WWFM for providing a platform from which I’ve been able to share music for the past 28 years (if you count my live air shifts). Some times were sweeter than others, but I never felt anything but contentment while I was spinning the records – the sweet spot where it was just me and the audience.
It was an unspoken compact that kept me there for decades, despite a lot of physical, psychological, and emotion wear-and-tear. No benefits, limited time off, hindered social life, strain on relationships, work on weekends and holidays, and for many years getting up at 3 or 4 in the morning and driving in all weather.
But what have I done for them lately?
At the moment, I’ve got a couple of other irons in the fire, including a very kind offer that arrived in my private messages the other day. But I had hoped to continue to have my local shows distributed from my local classical music station. Do what you will in terms of emailing, but I think it’s realistic to expect that they’ll pretty much do what they have always done, which is whatever it is they want to do.
For the time being, past shows are still archived as webcasts at the station website – although it looks as if the audio files for the last month or so have yet to be posted; but they’re there through March, with the more recent installments perhaps still on the way. The only other thing I ask is that you please excuse the horrendous profile pic!
https://www.wwfm.org/people/ross-amico
