Classical DJ Julie Amacher, frequently heard on Miami’s WKCP. Earlier this month, the Classical South Florida radio station, which broadcasts at 89.7 FM, bought WXEL-FM, a National Public Radio affiliate in Boynton Beach, for $3.85 million from its current owners, Barry University.

That will mean two American Public Media stations in the area, and for those of us who really enjoy Saint Paul Sunday and Pipe Dreams, that’s good news. WKCP (the call letters of Classical South Florida) said it will strengthen classical programming at WXEL (which will be renamed) and continue its NPR and public-affairs shows, which also is good news.

Because WXEL currently runs the American Public Media feed in the wee hours of the night, there’s already some program duplication, so it will be interesting to see how different the stations will end up being under the control of the same company. Some folks I’ve talked to fear the buyout means WXEL will simply be the Palm Beach County repeater for the Miami station, but that seems less likely to me because Classical South Florida seems interested, at least judging by its news release, in retaining the station’s local bent.

The news served as a reminder of how the classical radio situation has changed hereabouts in recent years. Back in the 1990s, when I used to listen to it all the time, you could hear WTMI, and to this day I can’t hear the Bruckner Fourth or Holst’s The Planets without being reminded of newsbreaks on that now-vanished station.

I was excited to listen to WTMI because it was not a public radio station, but a regular station that happened to program classical and jazz, like WFMT in Chicago, which I listen to a lot over the Internet. It was cheering to know that the area supported a robust station that had its own distinctive radio personalities (I even called China Valles once around 2 in the morning when I heard a disc I liked) and that was heavily supportive of the local classical and jazz scene.

When WTMI started to deteriorate and run programming in the morning that made fun of the music it was playing, it was clear the station was on the way out, so it was no surprise to me when it closed up shop and refocused to hip-hop. So that left WXEL, and if you drove north far enough, WQCS in Fort Pierce (which is an excellent station), or if you drove west far enough, you could catch WGCU out of Fort Myers.

But there wasn’t anything in Miami, though you could get good jazz on WLRN. So it was a relief when the big boys from Minnesota came on down with their programming, and added a much-needed classical station to the local audio mix.

I’d be interested to know what other classical audiophiles think about this announcement, and what you think it means for classical music programming in South Florida. Leave a comment below.