Today's (12/04/03) New York Times reports that the Annenberg Foundation
has offered over 3-million dollars to the Metropolitan Opera toward
retaining their Saturday matinee broadcasts.  ChevronTexaco earlier
announced that this season would be the last of their decades-long
association.  Met GM Joseph Volpe said in the Times story that this is
a giant step, but only one step toward any kind of solid future for the
Met broadcasts as we have known them.  Each season costs 7-million dollars
to produce, and current or potential affiliates would expect a multi-year
deal from any prospective advertiser/underwriter.  Muddying the waters
(the Rhine perhaps?) is a proposal by The Met to insert a mid-winter
hiatus into the live performance schedule.  It's been difficult enough
to get radio stations, both commercial and public, to commit to the
December-thru-April season; how would they take to a period of 2 or 3
Saturdays with no live operas.  If The Met offers tapes of past performan
ces, it would break the spell of only LIVE operas on the matinees.
Mountain and West Coast outlets have been forbidden to air tapes of the
weekend's opera, thus causing some stations there to drop them.  If The
Met is sending taped operas, why can't the affiliates?

Laurence Glavin