One of Washington, D.C.’s public radio stations is considering what has by now become a familiar format switch – dropping nearly all its classical music programming in favor of news and talk shows. WETA has been plagued by low ratings in recent years, and executives at the station fear that a classical format simply isn’t viable in an era when public broadcasters are forced to play much the same numbers game as commercial stations. However, there is a twist to WETA’s proposed change – the District already has an all-news public radio station, and the new format at WETA would likely duplicate a great deal of the programming that area listeners can already hear on WAMU.