89.5 WWED Spotsylvania/Fredericksburg and 91.7 WWEM Rustburg/Lynchburg, VA will cease broadcasting by the end of the month.
The two stations, which simulcast a Classical music format as “Classics Radio“, will keep their programming running online only. General manager Pete Stover of Educational Media Corporation told the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star that the stations did not have enough financial support.
The two stations have run through many formats in their short lives. Since first signing-on in 2005, WWED has gone through phases as Christian Preaching, Southern Gospel, Bluegrass, Christian AC, and since February 2012 Classical. WWEM launched as a full simulcast of WWED in 2007.
laurenceglavin
Someone will snatch these up…
When I read this story, I asssumed that these stations were “lite classical” stations, playing excerpts from longer pieces or the more accessible classical pieces like overtures and suites. So I logged on to their website, and there’s no doubt that WWED and WWEM are the exact opposie. At 1:00 pm on a Saturday, they played the Brahms Piano Concerto #2 in its entirety, then followed that up with a serious VOCAL piece from the outer boroughs of the choral repertoire, “The Martydom of St. Sebastian” by Debussy. The website doesn’t display a piece-by-piece listing of selections played during the day, but full Symphony Orchestra taped performances are shown for the evening. I’m sure Washington, DC-based WETA-FM can reach parts of Virginia that WWED/WWEM consider their prime coverage area, but not all. If WWED/WWEM operated where I live, I’d listen to it (I live very near to WCRB-99.5 in Lowell, MA, also classical but perhaps not as adventurous as this, although they offered the String Quartet #3 by Bela Bartok on a Sunday afternoon recently).