Councilman Elbra Wedgeworth has way too much time on her hands. And apparently, the leaders of the Denver Black and Hispanic Chambers of Commerce are seeing a slow holiday season, too. They also seem to have confused CBS with NPR.
All three met with CBS radio in Denver to protest a format change:
Wedgeworth; Wil Alston, vice president of the Colorado Black Chamber of Commerce; and Jeffrey Campos, president and CEO of the Denver Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, met with Don Howe, senior vice president for CBS Radio in Denver. They emphasized to Howe the station's importance in the Latino and African-American communities.Central to the meeting was the sudden demise Thursday of the area's only rhythm-and-blues outlet, axed after six years on air.
...
Independently, Urban Spectrum, a newspaper published in the Five Points neighborhood, launched a campaign Tuesday to let station management "know there is a voice out there they have turned their back on. They have a mandate to serve the public, and no one asked the public before switching."
Actually, they asked the public every day, and the public yawned. This was the only station in town with this format, they had no competition for this niche, and they still couldn't drum up enough listeners to pay the freight.
A few years ago, when KVOD, a commercial station and the only classical station in Denver, folded, CPR took over the call letters (although not the frequency), and began a 24-hour classical station. Maybe the aggrieved parties need to ask CPR to start sharing time on their classical network, but they need to stop playing program director with someone else's revenue stream.
UPDATE: I wrote this late last night, and clearly wasn't thinking. The Hispanic & Black Chambers of Commerce? Have they no advertisers?