Bye Bye Folk Music on WGBH

The above headline is not entirely true: "A Celtic Sojourn" is still on Saturday afternoons, but at a new time, 3 to 6 p.m. And "A Prairie Home Companion" is still on as well.

But Saturday afternoon non-Celtic folk is gone on WGBH.

Your humble blogger was at a holiday celebration Friday night (yes, I missed everything at the Narrows this weekend because of parties) and the hostess bemoaned the loss of folk on WBGH, which has a pretty good signal in these parts. "But they still have jazz at night," I helpfully pointed out. "I don't like jazz. I like folk," she retorted.

Of course there are myriad alternatives through the Internet, including our good friends and partners mvyradio.com. But, of course, this is not as portable as good old FM. (WUMB, which is folk, in Boston seems nearly impossible to get around here.)

Likewise, classical music fans are bemoaning the loss of Mozart et. al. on WGBH, which has eliminated classical, telling listeners to tune to WCRB, now part of WGBH. Trouble is, you really can't get the WCRB signal in the Fall River/Providence area.

There is one alternative for classical music: high definition radio. No, not satellite. This is radio with more channels, like HD TV. WGBH broadcasts WCRB on 89.7 FM HD2. Of course, you don't know what I'm talking about unless you have an HD radio. I bought one at Radio Shack a couple weeks back. I also bought an extra antenna because it's challenging grabbling HD signals from Boston. Locally, Clear Channel stations have secondary channels--e.g. WHJY HD2 is alternative rock; The Coast HD2 is smooth jazz; and B101, where your humble blogger used to work for nearly 20 years, has a classic rock station on HD2. Citadel Broadcasting's WPRO FM and Lite Rock broadcast in HD but don't have content on their HD2 channels as of yet.

Any opinions or suggestions on folk music or classical on the radio? How about those who listen to it on college stations. Any recommendations?