WFMR has been broadcasting classical music in the Milwaukee market for over 50 years. Granted, it is a niche market, but a niche with a very loyal listener base. As of midnight tonight, WFMR is dumping the classical format and will start playing “smooth jazz.”

It is the purpose of any radio station to make money, and a format that attracts the most listeners allows the station to charge more money for advertising due to advertisers getting more listeners. Let’s face it, classical programming is a small dog in the marketplace but even though it is a small market, it is a loyal one. What happened was that the smooth jazz station dumped the format (for just what the market needs, yet another rocker) so the classical station is dumping classical to get that huge smooth jazz audience - all three or four more listeners than classical had.

Wisconsin has two public radio networks, one plays classical music and the other offers the “talk that matters to…” someone, I suppose. Milwaukee has four public radio outlets, but Milwaukee does not have an outlet for the classical network. Two stations (one owned by the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) sound so much alike you can’t tell when you’re listening to one and not the other. Both offer liberal talk that has been all the rage to discuss the last few days.
(There are two other public stations, WMSE at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, an outlet that marches to the beat of a different drummer and WYMS and no one really knows what they’re broadcasting because they probably have fewer listeners than WFMR did.)
Bottom line: It’s a sad day for all Milwaukee radio listeners but especially those of us who like classical music.