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# Posted 6:40 AM by Patrick Belton

HOW NPR STOPPED PLAYING CLASSICAL MUSIC: Andrew Ferguson covers how it all happened:

Classical music listeners, the researchers [from Walrus Research, in 2002] discovered, "use classical music to escape from the problems of the world." Not surprisingly, there are similarities in race (white) and income levels (very high) between the average NPR listener and the lover of classical music, yet in fact they represent two very different kinds of people. One group the researchers dubbed "Classical Monks," the other, more typical of the new NPR listeners, were "NPR Activists."

Classical Monks use the music format to attain an internal state, soothing and calm, intensely personal. NPR Activists use information from NPR News to guide their relations with other people in their community and around the globe. . . . NPR Activists love analysis and debate. More talk is better, if that talk informs their understanding of global issues. . . . Classical listeners enter a dream world with images of paradise. The NPR newsmagazines keep reminding us of the real world, with its social conditions, environmental changes, and economic forces. . . .Classical Monks seek an emotion derived from the aesthetic. NPR Activists think that reason and logic, on the basis of solid information, can lead to the perfection of mankind.

The classical listener values lone serenity. NPR fans are the most politically active segment of the population.

For those who have trouble with complete sentences, Walrus Research helpfully broke the findings down into a neat PowerPoint chart (see above). "The portal to NPR news is through the intellect," said the study. "The portal to classical music is emotional."

In sum, Walrus said: "Classical listeners use the station for gratification of their private, internal needs." Sounds kind of yucky, doesn't it? And certainly not very public. Catering to such people might even be considered an abdication of responsibility for a program director bent on public service.

Incidentally, as Ferguson notes, there is an interesting academic paper, 'Guys in Suits with Charts,' by Alan Stavistky, about the 'transformation of public radio from its educational, service-based origins to an audience-driven orientation' - i.e., among other things, how it stopped playing Brahms and Mahler and began, like most arts in their decadant stage, dabbling in politics.

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