By Michael Miner
Artner assailed perfidy. “Today through Sunday, on the annual winter fund-raising drive, you again will hear employees trade on that history and promise its continuance. Don’t believe them.”
But this was not the Tribune picking on a fellow institution. It was simply one critic with deep feelings putting them out there at the risk of looking silly–no small risk for someone proud of a radio that could tune in only one station. I remind Grapentine that back in the days of glory that haunt Artner, the late Claudia Cassidy used to come on WFMT for half an hour each Sunday and tell Chicagoans what theater to avoid. Artner is a critic in her tradition.
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“If I were left to my own devices, I probably wouldn’t play the Pachelbel Canon anymore. I play it two or three times a year. But I always have people call and say, ‘What is that?’ Obviously Mr. Artner is at one extreme, and I’m probably at that extreme too. I bet if we could listen to what we wanted to listen to, it would probably be very similar. But that’s not what my job is. You have to appeal to the aficionado and the novice. I feel I have to be accessible–I hope that’s not a dirty word–without pandering. I’m sorry he doesn’t like my choices of what I play on the show. They’re not always my personal choices, but they’re what I feel are best all around.”
Grapentine: “If the morning show’s extremely hectic, maybe I don’t have time to do the research and go through 12 different versions of a song and decide which is better when I need something three minutes long at four minutes to the hour.”
I ask Lipman if the station is obligated to educate tomorrow’s audience while entertaining today’s. “You bet it is,” she says. “If it’s giving them what they say they want it’s providing a status quo. If you give them what they need it’s opening up doors and worlds. I think the station is trying to do that. But with all these focus groups and listener mail, maybe it doesn’t yet know how.”
