Well Bryan..........

...........I’ve lived in this area over 40 years, and while I’m sure it ain’t Boston, I don’t know about “cultural prairie.”
Relative to Boston, a “prairie” I’m sure, but certainly not a wasteland or a backwater.
When I came up here in 1966, WXXI was just Channel 21 (the source of “XXI”) — a public television station that aired only funky stuff that wasn’t mainstream. (It also was an “educational” station.)
My tastes, on the other hand, were mainstream. Rochester had a privately-owned classical music station, WBFB, an FM affiliate of AM rocker WBBF-950. WBFB had two expatriate Englishmen, Simon Pontin and Richard Gladwell, doing its announcing, so it wasn’t preprogrammed.
But I was listening to the rocker station, not WBFB; and in the ‘70s switched to WCMF-FM (which at that time was the so-called “underground station”), which was before Weeze. (And as far as I’m concerned “da Weeze” sucks.)
Meanwhile, when WBFB tanked, WXXI realized Rochester still had a market for classical music radio, so WXXI went classical format.
WXXI-FM goes back before that.

UTTER DESOLATION

The so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100, about 2004.

(Park [??????] in foreground; San Gabriels in background.)

At first they tried the same funky format as their TV feed, and even got an announcer from CMF to be morning-man.
But when that crashed mightily in flames they went classical. (They also hired Pontin, who had crashed trying to sell Mercedes.)
I remember feeling pretty good about L.A. when I first visited in the ‘80s, mainly because I was able to find a classical music station comparable to WXXI. (Not any more; see pik.)
WXXI-FM has broadcast over 30 years, and is now broadcasting an HD signal, plus they also stream their audio, as Bryan noted. I’m very pleased; they get a mega-gift from me every year. (I got an HD radio just for their feed.)

“Bryan” is Bryan Mahoney, who was a reporter at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper during my 10-year employ, the best I ever knew. He now lives in Boston, and keeps a blog wherein he suggested Rochester was a “cultural prairie,” compared to Boston. I figured this “comment” was too large to post on his blog.

RE: “‘Old’ guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines.

“Da Weeze” (“Brother Wease”) is a rather disgusting Rochester-area morning-man Howard Stern pretender.