Avid listeners to Classical station WQXR don’t need a formal introduction to Midge Woolsey. She started as a weekend host under The New York Times ownership. Later, she moved to weeknights, and since 2009 Woolsey has been on the middays.

That is all about to end.

After 20 years, Woolsey is singing a Brahms lullaby, as she holds fort on her final broadcast Thursday.

“Anyone would consider it an honor to be a part of what’s gone on, and what is going on at WQXR,” Woolsey tells FishbowlNY. “I can’t think of a better place to be doing the job that I’ve been doing. There is no better place.”

For the veteran broadcaster, she’ll miss everything attached to ‘QXR.

“It’s the whole package. It’s the connection that we make everyday with the listeners,” Woolsey says.

Those loyal fans have been writing well wishes to Woolsey on their Web site. Perhaps from the strong bond that classical music aficionadoes have with their station, many comments were equally passionate about the longtime host.

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Lost in the holiday fanfare was the passing of a longtime radio host on WNEW 1130. Bob Jones was 70. The family’s obituary placed in The New York Times on January 4 listed Jones’ cause of death as complications from cancer.

Jones, for parts of three decades, had hosting stints on WNEW mainstays–The Make Believe Ballroom and The Milkman’s Matinee. He remained an advocate of the “Great American Songbook,” playing the likes of Frank Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney (George’s aunt). He remained at WNEW until the end in 1992 when Bloomberg Radio took over the frequency.

One of the many colleagues that intersected with Jones is market veteran Bob Gibson. The retired newsman worked with Jones at WNEW.

“He was pleasant and always easy to get along with, but perhaps his most endearing trait was his love for the music he played and the care he took in telling stories about a particular singer or arrangement.”

In his later years, Jones was a midday announcer at classical WQXR and morning man at WQEW until Disney took over in 1998.

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Emmy-winning actor Alec Baldwin will host a podcast for WNYC called Here’s the Thing.

The show, which launches Monday, October 24, gives Baldwin an opportunity to pursue his passions and interests through various conversations. Those conversations could include newsmakers, actors, and public figures who spark his fancy. 

“As someone who has been the subject of innumerable interviews, I wanted to conduct my own and do them the way I liked them: emphasizing the positive, the forward-looking,” said Baldwin. “And I wanted to do that show with WNYC.”

The first podcast features an interview with Michael Douglas and his battle with cancer.  Other guests in the coming weeks include political consultant Ed Rollins and Chris Rock discussing his Broadway debut.

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WQXR is positioning itself for the future. The nation’s most listened to classical music station has launched its first mobile app, available immediately.

The app brings listeners a new, exciting way to tune into the station, while giving access to WQXR’s large vault of digital only features.

WQXR unveils the app to coincide with the station’s live broadcast of tonight’s season-opening concert by the New York Philharmonic.

In addition to 105.9 FM broadcasts, the mobile app will give audiences direct link to Q2 Music, WQXR’s online contemporary music stream.

The new WQXR app is available free of charge to iPhone users, and may be downloaded from the iTunes store. An Android version will be available in early October.

Classical station WQXR/105.9 FM has named Martha Bonta as executive producer of live events and special programming.

In this role, Bonta will be responsible for shaping WQXR’s extensive live broadcasts, including the groundbreaking series ‘Carnegie Hall Live,’ season-long partnerships with the New York Philharmonic, and Met Opera. She’ll also be in-charge of cultivating the distinctive relationships with the Frick Collection, Le Poisson Rouge, and Merkin Concert Hall.

“I am delighted that Martha is joining the WQXR family at this important moment of our 75 year history,” said WQXR VP Graham Parker.  “Her well-respected artistic sensibility, deep knowledge of the music and artists, and keen, imaginative perspective makes her an ideal partner to me and resource for our listeners.” 

In The Jerome L. Greene Performance Space – WQXR’s innovative multiplatform live event venue – Bonta will envision a diverse range of live events, festivals, and artist residencies with emerging and popular classical artists. 

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Michael Rinzel, a digital media strategist with extensive experience in commercial entertainment cable television, has been named director of digital content.
 
In this role, Rinzel will provide strategy and leadership in WQXR aspiration to become a leading media source of classical music. He will oversee the relaunch of WQXR.org in Fall 2011, which will include robust video content, online partnerships, and special music streams, and will support on-air programming and festivals.

“As an ardent fan of public radio, I’m excited to help realize WQXR’s goal of creating a home and global meeting place for classical music fans in the 21st century,” said Rinzel.  “WQXR has a unique opportunity to engage more fully with both its traditional audience of classical music lovers, as well as a whole new segment of casual, yet digitally engaged listeners eager for new musical experiences. I’m looking forward to bringing the skills I honed in commercial media to greater serve the public media audience.”

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New York Public Radio, the parent company of WNYC (AM and FM) and WQXR, has named Thomas Hjelm as chief digital officer.

Hjelm brings a wealth of experience to the position.

He spent time at NBC as senior director of content strategy and business operations for the Local Media wing.

Previously, Hjelm was a creative director of marketing at AOL,  and a director of their broadband services.

With February being Black History Month, classical music station WQXR and Terrance McKnight have lined up special programming.

Throughout the month, as host of the Saturday night program All Ears, McKnight gives listeners insight into famous black musicians.

It starts on February 5 with A Musical Biography of Bill T. Jones.

“Bill’s not a musician… He’s a chorographer. When I watch Bill’s work, I saw or I heard similarities to what I do on air, and all about mixing genres,” McKnight tells FishbowlNY.

He says using a biography of Jones through music, listeners will find out “those important kind of points of collision where music became important, and by extension how it became important in his work years later.”

McKnight, since joining WQXR in 2009, has become a popular destination for legions of New York classical music aficionados. He was first heard in the area on WNYC in 2008. (WNYC parent company New York Public Radio purchased ‘QXR from The New York Times in 2009.)

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New York is home to some of the biggest media companies in the country, like Condé Nast, The New York Times Co., News Corp., Hearst and Time Warner, just to name a few.

This year, those companies were imperiled, struggling to survive like many other companies around the world. But as print media disputed declarations that its days were numbered, these once-great companies that made their money from print pubs were fighting hard to keep their heads above water. In order to do that they made some decisions — like bringing in new investors, closing publications and selling them off. It was in no way a big year for media deals, but there were a few. Below, our list of the biggest business stories to come out of the New York media world this year.

Bloomberg LP Buys BusinessWeek

After seeking a buyer for BusinessWeek for most of the fall, publisher McGraw-Hill finally cut a deal with Bloomberg LP, which snapped up the magazine in October. The result? Bloomberg BusinessWeek, a new vision of the mag that has a new editor and a smaller staff.

After the jump, Carlos Slim invests in the Times, classical music and the Comcast-NBCU deal.

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Last night, New York public radio station WNYC threw a gala at Gotham Hall to celebrate its recent acquisition of New York’s classical radio station WQXR and honor its former owner, The New York Times Co.

Hosted by Alec Baldwin, the evening featured performances by folksinger Judy Collins and opera diva Deborah Voigt. David Sanger, a New York Times correspondent and host of the “Washington Report” on WQXR — and grandson of the station’s founder Elliott Sanger — presented the Times Co. with an award, accepted by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., commemorating the company’s stewardship of WQXR since 1944.

Later, Baldwin announced that the winner of the evening’s raffle would get a radio — actually, an Internet radio tuned to WQXR. “The New York Times got a piece of glass, for the millions and millions of dollars they’ve coughed up,” he said. “A piece of glass. The winner of the raffle gets a radio.”

(Video and more pictures after the jump)

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