“Music–not merely classical but also jazz, folk, blues, and bluegrass, once staples of public radio programming–is slowly being withdrawn from the public airwaves. The number of noncommercial stations identified as “classical” has been cut in half since 1993, while the number of noncommercial news-talk stations has tripled. From 1995 to 2002, the number of locally generated classical music hours on public radio declined roughly 10 percent, even as the number of public radio stations greatly increased; meanwhile, over the same period, the number of news-talk hours rose by more than 150 percent. As the tracking study researchers wrote in their report, with unseemly enthusiasm: ‘Local classical music just sits there, while NPR news-talk races ahead’.”