KING FM has finally decided to make the switch. And it only took six decades.
In a press release yesterday, Seattle’s classical radio station announced they would become a listener-supported station effective July 2011. Since 1948, when the station was founded by Dorothy Stimson Bullitt, it has used a commercial broadcasting model.
The switch to a listener-supported model isn’t surprising. Many commercial radio stations and especially commercial classical stations have struggled in recent years. Stations can point to a variety of reasons for their difficulty, but the one-two punch of a faltering economy and new audience measurement methodologies crippled the remaining commercial classical stations across the country. The biggest victim of the changing reality for commercial classical radio was WQXR which was absorbed by WNYC late last year.
Gathering Note 