Letter to the Editor - Classical 96

Hello,

As a 15 year veteran of the radio station Classical 96.3, I read David Podgorski's article Classical Radio News (La Scena Musicale June 2008) with great interest. Yet at the same time, I take strong exception to the statement "the station was bleeding cash when Znaimer took over". The station was profitable long before Mr. Znaimer came along in 2006.

True enough, Classical 96 lost a lot of money during the early years in Cobourg, but with the arrival of Peter Webb as general manager in the mid '90s, all that changed. Not only did Webb alter the programming, but he also invested more heavily in advertising, and most importantly, moved the entire operation into Toronto where it became a major player in a very tough market. Almost from the beginning, we enjoyed far higher ratings then those of CBC Radio 2, and before long, we were solidly in the black.

Richard Haskell

Toronto