A CLASSICAL DIVORCE
(Saturday) The public radio stations in the US are trying to divorce themselves from the fine arts. Classical music just doesn't draw the dollars like talk-radio and the newsmagazines -- all of which I at times enjoy -- but I would rather that they didn't bump classical music.

I don't understand how it is that the most listened to station in the UK is ClassicFM (6.5 million listeners a week) but in the US public radio stations are abandoning what has traditionally been their mainstay as though it was the plague.

Fortunately satellite radio and broadband Internet streams are coming to our rescue. Some of my favorite online options:

KBAQ (Phoenix) -- an NPR station which still specializes in classical

ClassicFM (London) -- Commercial, best of classical format, and as a bonus -- traffic reports for the London area motorways.

BBC3 (London) -- The "mother of all classical stations" -- has Choral Evensong live on Wednesdays (and on file for other times)

XLNC1 (Tijuana, Baja California, México) -- aiming at the San Diego listener

WGCU (Ft. Myers, Florida) -- Only classical about half time but fun to imagine that I'm in South Florida

KING (Seattle) -- the first classical station to utilize streaming audio

KUSC (Los Angeles) -- the station I listen to when I'm driving in So Cal

KCNV (Las Vegas) -- new on my list

ClassicalWebcast is a site run by Peter Ribbens in the Netherlands. He has tried to catalog all of the classical stations with live-webcasts -- in the whole world! There are still lots of options out there -- even if NPR continues down the road to perdition.