Radio Pioneer Seeks Alternative Fuels
Saturday afternoon broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera have been around since 1931, the dawn of the radio age. Texaco has sponsored them since 1940, but just announced that the next season will be their last. Who will step in to "wear the star" of this historic sponsor?

The Texas Company, then Texaco, now ChevronTexaco, has in fact been the broadcasts' sole sponsor since 1940, making this the longest continuous sponsorship in broadcast history. But not for much longer -- the company has cited shifting geographic and demographic priorities for its community support programs, and it will sponsor only one more season.

Met broadcasts seasons start each December and run until May. The past season was carried over more than 360 stations in the United States, as well as in 42 other countries. The next season, ChevronTexaco's last, will include 20 broadcasts, starting Dec. 13, 2003 with Jacques Halévy’s "La Juive" and ending April 24, 2004 with Wagner’s "Die Götterdämmerung," the fourth and final Ring opera.

Met general manager Joseph Volpe insists that the show will go on but with new sponsors covering the estimated $7 million per year costs, and Chevron Texaco has told the Met that they will help find a new sponsor in time for the 2004-5 season.

This news comes at a touchy time for the arts. Just a six months ago, ExxonMobil pulled the plug on 30-years of sponsorship for PBS’ "Masterpiece Theatre." The Lyric Opera of Chicago ended its Saturday afternoon broadcasts after hard-hit airline sponsors United and American dropped their sponsorships. [See also the article "What is the Sound of No Hands Clapping?" in this edition of Vibrations, which documents a recent rash of orchestra closings.]

ChevronTexaco also sponsors the on-line Opera Information Center, created in partnership with the Metropolitan Opera Guild. The site offers a wealth of information, including a history of the broadcasts, the Metropolitan Opera itself, and the Guild. The online season guide (available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese) includes curriculum materials for teachers as well as audio samples and photographs from each opera’s Met performance. It also contains intermission features from each program, a station finder, and news archives.

In a related article, John Rockwell of the New York Times (column, June 1, 2003) laments the state of sponsorships and does wish the Met a speedy and successful search for a new sponsor -- but also points out how the perennial Met broadcasts might have had some unintended negative consequences. Although they have brought opera to the far reaches of the cultural world for decades, Rockwell argues that they may have "dampened the growth of local opera in cities around the country." Further, for many people radio is their primary source of opera, so they develop a "false image of opera as a voice-driven aural art form," and therefore resist thinking of opera as live theater. Rockwell: "To judge from endemic protests at even slightly outré productions… too many Americans are convinced that opera should be just a sensuous bath in vocal timbre…; for them, theatrical meaning or vibrancy, let alone modern-day reinterpretation, is an alien intrusion." For Rockwell, experiencing opera live (or at least via DVD) is the real deal.

Visit the Metropolitan Opera and read about their broadcasts

Learn even more about the Met's programs at the ChevronTexaco Opera Information Center, which includes a 2003-2004 broadcast schedule and a station finder

Read ChevronTexaco's May 2003 press statement about ending the sponsorship of the Met broadcasts

Read coverage of ChevronTexaco's decision from CBS, the LA Times, and MSNBC.

Read a column by Art Buchwald, who is quite unhappy with ChevronTexaco

Read John Rockwell's June 1, 2003 column in the New York Times [fee required]

Read a December, 2003 press statement from ExxonMobil about ending its sponsorship of Masterpiece Theatre.