Traditions
Washington, DC has two public radio stations: WAMU, with a news/talk format, and WETA.
WETA went on the air in 1970, and Mary Cliff started there two years later. Very soon she was asked to take over the station's Saturday night folk music show, Traditions, and she has been hosting it ever since, playing modern and traditional folk and acoustic music.
Mary gave special emphasis to local DC-area performers like goingdriftless, playing their music and announcing what she called the "who's wheres," detailed lists of all the upcoming week's local folk performances.
But only a week after Mary was assured that she would be at WETA until she retired, the station announced that they were changing their format. Not only would folk music disappear from the region's airwaves, but the who's wheres -- vital to the health of the local folk scene -- would disappear.
Although the page will undoubtedly be going away soon, WETA's website still glowingly describes Mary Cliff:Over the years she's worked every shift and produced every type of program WETA has aired, at one time or other. She has also been part of national broadcasts as host, producer, and interviewer -- classical, folk and public affairs.
Traditions, her four-hour Saturday night folk music program, is known for its breadth: a mix of traditional, revival, singer-songwriter, ethnic, world and kitchen music, with a strong emphasis on artists and performances in the greater Washington area.
Outside her work at WETA, Mary Cliff is seen as festival MC, chamber music recording engineer, long-time volunteer and cheerleader for this area's music scene and its artists, especially those of the folk community. She is frequently spotted in concert and club audiences.
When Mary started at WETA 34 years ago, folk was still popular. But it has been in decline since then, and Traditions was the last show left. So it was stunning to her many fans when WETA unceremoniously dumped her.
WETA was a classical music station for most of its life, but several other shows, including Traditions, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and A Praire Home Companion, also had a place. But the classical music market was split between WETA and another classical station, albeit a commercial one, WGMS. WETA lost listeners to WGMS during news programming hours and lost listeners to WAMU when they played music.
So two years ago, in an attempt to improve their market share, WETA went head-to-head with WAMU and switched to an all news/talk format -- except for the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon and Traditions on Saturday night. I'm an NPR/PRI junkie as well as a folk music fan, so I was delighted. They had a lot of BBC programming, some NPR and PRI shows that WAMU didn't carry, and things were on at different times so that there was always something interesting to listen to on one station or the other.
But recently a bid was made to buy WGMS and -- after more than 60 years of broadcasting classical music -- switch its format to rock. Classical music fans, faced with the complete erasure of their music from DC's air, howled. The change was delayed. But behind the scenes, WGMS was negotiating with the board of WETA, which voted to switch back to classical if WGMS changed its format.
A deal was struck. WGMS gave WETA its entire library of 18,000 classical CDs, and even its URL -- when you type in wgms.com you're redirected to wgms.weta.com, which begins "ATTENTION WGMS LISTENERS:" and welcomes them to WETA. The two stations agreed to a six-month cross-promotion, and WGMS's program director and some of its hosts moved to WETA. All of this was gratis, as it was mutually beneficial.
But instead of going back to the hybrid format they used to have, WETA decided to become all classical all the time. That meant Traditions, A Prairie Home Companion, the BBC, and a number of other shows were no longer available in the DC market. Fans of those shows howled, and furious contributors demanded their money back.
WAMU instantly responded by changing its lineup, picking up most of the network programs dropped by WETA and rejiggering its entire schedule to accommodate them. But the locally produced Traditions wasn't included.
Folk music fans howled. But in her final show on WETA, Mary urged her listeners not to worry. "I don't know where I'll be, but I'll be somewhere," she promised several times. Rumors flew that she was negotiating with this or that broadcast or satellite radio station.
So her fans were deliriously happy when first Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, and then WAMU itself, announced that Traditions with Mary Cliff was moving to WAMU.
It's only two hours now instead of five and at the inconvenient time of 11 pm - 1 am, sandwiched between Hot Jazz Saturday Night and Bluegrass Overnight. But all of us folk fans are hopeful that further changes will be made and Mary -- and our favorite music -- will get more time.
WETA went on the air in 1970, and Mary Cliff started there two years later. Very soon she was asked to take over the station's Saturday night folk music show, Traditions, and she has been hosting it ever since, playing modern and traditional folk and acoustic music.
Mary gave special emphasis to local DC-area performers like goingdriftless, playing their music and announcing what she called the "who's wheres," detailed lists of all the upcoming week's local folk performances.
But only a week after Mary was assured that she would be at WETA until she retired, the station announced that they were changing their format. Not only would folk music disappear from the region's airwaves, but the who's wheres -- vital to the health of the local folk scene -- would disappear.
Although the page will undoubtedly be going away soon, WETA's website still glowingly describes Mary Cliff:Over the years she's worked every shift and produced every type of program WETA has aired, at one time or other. She has also been part of national broadcasts as host, producer, and interviewer -- classical, folk and public affairs.
Traditions, her four-hour Saturday night folk music program, is known for its breadth: a mix of traditional, revival, singer-songwriter, ethnic, world and kitchen music, with a strong emphasis on artists and performances in the greater Washington area.
Outside her work at WETA, Mary Cliff is seen as festival MC, chamber music recording engineer, long-time volunteer and cheerleader for this area's music scene and its artists, especially those of the folk community. She is frequently spotted in concert and club audiences.
When Mary started at WETA 34 years ago, folk was still popular. But it has been in decline since then, and Traditions was the last show left. So it was stunning to her many fans when WETA unceremoniously dumped her.
WETA was a classical music station for most of its life, but several other shows, including Traditions, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and A Praire Home Companion, also had a place. But the classical music market was split between WETA and another classical station, albeit a commercial one, WGMS. WETA lost listeners to WGMS during news programming hours and lost listeners to WAMU when they played music.
So two years ago, in an attempt to improve their market share, WETA went head-to-head with WAMU and switched to an all news/talk format -- except for the Metropolitan Opera on Saturday afternoon and Traditions on Saturday night. I'm an NPR/PRI junkie as well as a folk music fan, so I was delighted. They had a lot of BBC programming, some NPR and PRI shows that WAMU didn't carry, and things were on at different times so that there was always something interesting to listen to on one station or the other.
But recently a bid was made to buy WGMS and -- after more than 60 years of broadcasting classical music -- switch its format to rock. Classical music fans, faced with the complete erasure of their music from DC's air, howled. The change was delayed. But behind the scenes, WGMS was negotiating with the board of WETA, which voted to switch back to classical if WGMS changed its format.
A deal was struck. WGMS gave WETA its entire library of 18,000 classical CDs, and even its URL -- when you type in wgms.com you're redirected to wgms.weta.com, which begins "ATTENTION WGMS LISTENERS:" and welcomes them to WETA. The two stations agreed to a six-month cross-promotion, and WGMS's program director and some of its hosts moved to WETA. All of this was gratis, as it was mutually beneficial.
But instead of going back to the hybrid format they used to have, WETA decided to become all classical all the time. That meant Traditions, A Prairie Home Companion, the BBC, and a number of other shows were no longer available in the DC market. Fans of those shows howled, and furious contributors demanded their money back.
WAMU instantly responded by changing its lineup, picking up most of the network programs dropped by WETA and rejiggering its entire schedule to accommodate them. But the locally produced Traditions wasn't included.
Folk music fans howled. But in her final show on WETA, Mary urged her listeners not to worry. "I don't know where I'll be, but I'll be somewhere," she promised several times. Rumors flew that she was negotiating with this or that broadcast or satellite radio station.
So her fans were deliriously happy when first Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher, and then WAMU itself, announced that Traditions with Mary Cliff was moving to WAMU.
It's only two hours now instead of five and at the inconvenient time of 11 pm - 1 am, sandwiched between Hot Jazz Saturday Night and Bluegrass Overnight. But all of us folk fans are hopeful that further changes will be made and Mary -- and our favorite music -- will get more time.