Breaking on the Boston Phoenix website is some sad news for Boston-area music fans, regarding the independent rock radio station WFNX.
Not much to say about this personally, other than it bums me out. For decades, WFNX has been the last real "independent" radio in the Boston listening area. (Other than the college stations, like WERS Emerson and WMBR MIT, which can usually only be picked up if you're standing in the right place, on one foot, holding a coathanger in the air.) WFNX was the only station that played new bands and local music instead of just waiting to see what was popular and playing only that. It was also the only station that was really tied in to the local music scene in some form or another.
But now, its owners, the Phoenix Media Group (publishers of the BoPho), have decided it's not making enough money and have sold it (pending FCC approval) to the company that is, in every conceivable way, the very oppostie of WFNX: ClearChannel Communications.
So Boston loses an independent radio station and gets... what? Probably another Top 40-esque "we play everything" station ("everything" being, of course, limited to the commercially successful and artistically vapid hits of the last three decades). Or worse, right-wing talk radio.
From the article linked to above, a rather typical statement from the guy in charge:
Despite its celebrated history, its cutting edge programming , its tradition of breaking new music, its ardent fans among listeners and advertisers, for some time it has been difficult to sustain the station -- especially since the start of the Great Recession.
And that is why the station is being sold.
(Note the use of the passive. Apparently, no one including the executives made a decision to sell the last bastion of independent radio programming in the Boston market... it just happened.)
So, RIP WFNX... you will be missed by many including me.
4:08 PM PT: More on WFNX (h/t Phil S 33):
http://www.boston.com/...