Do radio stations have "Performance Studios" anymore?

[kenglish]

Do many radio stations have Performance Studios any more? I suppose talk and sports stations have little need for them, but do music stations have a place where visiting musicians or vocalists can perform in a decent studio environment, with fairly high-end mike's and equipment?
I think the Bonneville Seattle stations have something in their new facility. What about here?

[David]

I don't know if KRCL has a separate performance studio, but they've aired "Live at KRCL" events with musicians as recently as 2020. They also sold their old studio building at 1971 West North Temple in 2021 and moved into a new studio, so it's possible that KRCL's new home has a performance studio, at least according to this page.
krcl.org/blog/krcl-is-moving/

[henry]

KBYU (Classical 89) does! They even used to have a show called "Highway 89" that recorded live classical music performers (including high schools) in an as-if live manner, and then aired it.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTgn_46-tPA

[kenglish]

That's a great studio. I wonder if KUER has one any more ...I think they did, many years ago, when they did jazz, didn't they?

[CAwasinNJ]

It makes total sense that BYU would. I'm sure they have quite a few high end performance spaces with good mikes, a board and recording equipment for classroom use, so using that for the radio station seems natural.

[amanuensis]

My daughter used to sing in the Salt Lake Children's Choir. Each year, KBYU hauled microphones and recording equipment (and an engineer) to the Cathedral of the Madeline to record SLCC's Christmas concert. They played selections from the previous year's concert during programming in the following Christmas season. There was no reason why KBYU had to do that, especially not each year.

[henry]

When I was an undergraduate student employee, I occasionally helped do that! Madeline recording trips were great! Organ Fest. The Children's Choir.

We had NO recording capabilities in the HFAC. Voice trackers had to use storage closets with foam padding on the walls. Or even one modular recording booth we called "The Easy Bake Oven" because it would get up to 90+ degrees in there really quickly when the door was closed. So, we'd have to travel TO the Cathedral of the Madeline to record.

The idea of the Performance Studio (circa 2011) was to bring the community to us. It was a fantastic idea the former General Manager, Marcus Smith had to really "localize" Classical 89. Get the station involved with the community. Add more live jocks to the lineup (we used to be live from 6a-6p). Really use the station's art-focus to interact with Wasatch Front's non-LDS community and build bridges.

Then that damn Deseret News article came out saying a new BYUB president (Michael Dunn) was killing Classical 89. And everything went sideways after that. A middle-level manager saved the station by talking upper management into buying 107.9, which helped. But Marcus got sidelined. And new the vision for Classical 89 was to basically having it live in AM drive and voice tracked the rest of the day. Bruce Seely retired. Mark Wait was *forced* to retire. And neither of them were replaced. Highway 89 ended. And now Classical 89 is a ghost of what it was a decade ago. And around the (circa 2018) is when I got out of Dodge. I could see where things were going.

I could get into a long boring soapbox about how much BYU (and the LDS church) are really sucking at building bridges these days -- and how Classical 89 (and NOT BYU-TV) makes a great bridge to a non-LDS audience. But that's beyond the scope of this forum.

[CAwasinNJ]

Sept 21, 2022 1:28:47 GMT -6 henry said:

I could get into a long boring soapbox about how much BYU (and the LDS church) are really sucking at building bridges these days -- and how Classical 89 (and NOT BYU-TV) makes a great bridge to a non-LDS audience. But that's beyond the scope of this forum.

If you wanted to write about building bridges in general, the General Talk board would be fine for that.  If you wanted to talk about the BYU Radio/TV aspect, that's totally on topic.  I'd be interested.

[henry]

I guess to try and keep it in the lane, I'll write this (mirroring the thoughts of some of my now-retired colleagues):

The LDS church (and BYU) want to convert new church members. Totally fine. That's what the First Amendment is all about. Heck, I even served a mission a couple of decades ago. So, when the church or the university offer to build a bridge to the community-- no matter how well-intended, it nearly always turns into a missionary conversion tool.

As an example, under Derek Marquis, BYUtv used a model called "the funnel." The idea was general audiences would tune in for something like "Studio C" or game coverage fans of BYU's opponent basketball/football/soccer school. They'd see promos in the commercial breaks for stuff like "American Ride." Not heavy-hitting, but certainly more educational than "Studio C." Maybe like 10% of the audience DVR those shows. And then when they tune in for those shows, they see promos for inspirational shows-- ones that get into scripture a little bit, etc. And then they are ready for when the missionaries knock on the door. (At least that was the theory, circa 2011).

Classical 89 was a TOTALLY different animal. Its goal was to be a straight-up non-comm classical music station. We covered "The Arts in Utah" (a student-led daily feature piece, where they'd interview musicians and performers across the state, with no judgment as to their personal lives). Classical 89 carried straight-up news and was the staging ground for so many TV personalities (e.g., Bob Evans and countless others). We taped at the Cathedral of the Madeline with no efforts overt or covert to inject LDS stuff into the event. It was a pure unadulterated appreciation of the arts and classical music *in Utah*. We didn't have many resources, and by gum we stretched every working hour we had to build a bridge with non-LDS in Utah. And it worked. We had such a great relationship. We all could set the Utah religious culture war aside and just enjoy a night at Abravanel Hall. Wow, I miss those days (the irony of which, I personally hate classical music lol).

As I left BYUB, things appeared to be getting worse and better. BYUtv had abandoned the covert "funnel" model. Word from nameless "upper bosses" (apostles?) was that BYUtv was to be a "gift to the world," so a lot of the soft-sell was dropped. That's why the network sort of has more of a Hallmark/Nickelodeon vibe now. So, that's good. On the other hand, as I mentioned previously, Classical 89 nearly died. And it was never afforded resources since to return to what it once was. Such is the story of radio stations in the 21st century, I suppose.

You learned about the Classical 89 "is going away" story the same time the rest of us did-- through a random article in the Deseret News. Even some upper managers did. It created shockwaves internally. Nobody was upset about 11 PBS going away. But Classical 89? Wow! A certain (not-so-great unnamed post-Marquis) company president pulled one of my colleagues into his office and accused him for being the leaker. They had simply been vocally critical at work of the decision. No social media posts. And certainly no leak (they learned about it via DesNews the way the rest of us did!) It really sucked.

As you can tell from my tone, I left on bittersweet terms. I adore my co-workers and everything we did to build BYU Radio. I'm conflicted because I watch BYU Radio nearly "eat" Classical 89 without warning-- and always felt regret for having created the monster. And I'm in a position where I cannot celebrate the university I worked so hard for (and earned multiple degrees from) because of unkind exclusionary policies. The school currently has a negative reputation, which makes it unprofessional to slap a "BYU ALUM" license plate frame on my car. And that makes me sad.

Anyway, I could ramble a lot more CA. But again, I'm trying to stay in the "radio" lane here lol.

(To any former colleagues who may stumble across this post, my name isn't really "henry", obviously. But if you figure out who I am, I wish you a happy hello and hope you're doing well!)

[CAwasinNJ]

Thank you. I appreciate the insight.