The Journal News from White Plains, New York • Page 141

WQXR: The classics with 'personality' By ANNE EATON Radio Writer rr If' i Announcer Duncan Pirnie (L); program boss Robert Sherman In Jheir frenzied strivings to appeal to a bigger slice of the audience than everybody else, radio stations easily fall prey to the numbers game. They often become clones of one another, distinguishable only by tiny mutations in format. Programs and personalities come and go with breathtaking alacrity, nudged off into the outer darkness by the ratings god Ar-bitron. Classical music stations WQXR AM and FM, however, have carved out a niche in lofty isolation from the common throng. Over the years, WQXR has managed to go its own high-minded way, indifferent to the rough and tumble of the ratings battle.

WQXR is broadcasting's equivalent of those ancient villages in the Caucasus, where the inhabitants live on yogurt and survive past age 100. Zipping along the dial, you can always tell when you have reached WQXR (at 96.3 FM and 1560 AM); its announcers have developed a distinctive inflection a plummy style that comes across as rather stately. The station's personnel roster hasn't changed much over the years, and the voices one hears have been there seemingly forever: News director Bill Strauss has been with WQXR since its founding in 1936; chief announcer Duncan Pirnie joined up in 1942; George Edwards and Peter Allen came aboard in 1948; Robert Sherman joined in '56 and music director George Jellinek arrived in '68. Amid these wonders of longevity, program coordinator Tony Rudel, the "baby" of the station, has been there for only three years. Station executives say there is a lot more to running a classi- cal music outlet than simply playing records.

Program director Robert Sherman says "WQXR's approach, differs from that of WNCN (the area's other major classical music outlet, at 104.3 FM) in that the format is divided into highly individualized programs, each taking on the style of its host, under the generalized stylistic umbrella of the station as a whole." Adds Rudel, "The station has integrated the concept of personality radio with classical programming." At WQXR, there is no rigid policy dictating what type of classical music may be played none of that business of choosing one selection from column A and two from column B. Each producer, the station says, chooses the music for his own show. Regular WQXR listeners have noted that there have been a few changes in programming over the past couple of years. Light music, show tunes, and ethnic programs have been all but dropped, and folk music has been relegated to a half-hour on Saturday nights. Sherman explains that the people who tune into WQXR are looking for hard core classical music, and there is no point in doing things that other stations can do better.

"Campus Beat," hosted by Tony Rudel, is the station's nod to the younger generation, but its orientation is still classical. WQXR recently announced that beginning in February, its monthly programming will be listed in a supplement to a new magazine called "Ovations," to which the station has already begun selling subscriptions. A visit to the WQXR studios gives one the feeling of being backstage at a concert hall. Housed in the sprawling corridors of the New York Times building (the Times owns the station), WQXR is in the process of being refurbished, something which has been going on forever and looks like it will take forever to complete. Amid the ropes and ladders, personages whose names are household words in the music business scurry back and forth.

One might run into the likes of Zubin Mehta, Beverly Sills, Robert Merrill or Aaron Copland. The air is filled with the sound of instruments being tuned and singers warming up. At the heart of the station is a collection of some 50,000 records and countless more tapes. Flease turn to next pagi" TV Radio Week, December 16, 1979 Page 35.