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The World Socialist Web Site reports
The binational and bilingual classical radio station XLNC1, which broadcast on 104.9 FM, had its last day on the air yesterday. The station, whose broadcast area covered the regions of southern San Diego County, Tijuana, and northern Baja California, announced on February 9 that it would no longer broadcast due a lack of funding.
The station was unique in that it was one the few in the world that was both binational and bilingual. Its tower was located in Baja California, and the station was known for announcing composers and titles in both Spanish and English, often using one language to introduce a piece and the other language when the piece ended. The station will maintain streaming via their online services, but radio listeners in the region will no longer be able to tune into 104.9 FM.
XLNC1 was founded in 1998 by Victor Diaz initially as an Internet radio station. In 2000, it began broadcasting at 90.7 FM. In 2004, the station nearly shut down due to signal and financial problems, and eventually moved to 104.9 FM in 2008.
Diaz stated that he created the station to educate audiences in both Mexico and the United States about classical music and its mission was "to make great music accessible to everyone." Following Diaz's death in 2004, his wife Martha Barba kept the underfunded station afloat, often with personal funds.
During its 20 years of operation, commercial-free classical music has been played on XLNC1 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The wide-ranging programming includes the most popular melodies in classical music each weekday morning, the "Top 400 Hits of the Last 400 Years," and weekly broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic, as well as the San Francisco Opera during its season.
Nightly Gala Concerts are known for their diversity. For instance, this week alone, "The Greatest Video Game Music," performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, will follow "Music by Nikolai Myaskovsky" performed by the USSR Radio Symphony Orchestra.
"This is a great loss for both the community of San Diego and Tijuana," XLNC1 owner Martha Barba told the WSWS. "XLNC1's significance was to unify both the United States and Mexico by erasing borders with classical music. We hoped to better the relationship between the community of San Diego and Tijuana by bringing them together with music. We also hoped to teach future generations the importance of classical music and inspire them to pursue their passions in music and the creative arts.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Monday March 05 2018, @02:08PM
The vast majority of costs for running a radio station are artificial: Once set up, for instance, a carefully set up 100 watt station capable of covering a small town has actual operating costs of a few dollars per month. Everything beyond that is either indirectly imposed by FCC (or the equivalent agency in other countries), and copyright owners (something that does not always apply, depending on what the content is) and by choices made in station staffing.
Many areas are underserved; there is plenty of open band space, no danger of interference, etc., but it's still an incredible financial pushup to set a small station up, so much so that it's basically near-impossible.
For instance, here, during the daytime there is one AM station and one FM station. At night, the AM band becomes full of fading and interfering stations; aside from a few clear channel stations, there is very little worth trying to listen to (of course DXing is something else again.) The FM band does not act the same way, and so it's still the one station.
The materials cost for a station are also much higher than they actually need to be, particularly for small stations.
Not that this will change — broadcast-band airwaves are a corporate-owned, government-fluffed resource that will be milked until dead, then discarded.
It's just interesting to look at the artificial walls that have been set up to make station establishment and operation difficult. It doesn't have to be this way. It just is.