Editor’s note: Classical music broadcasting pioneer Victor Diaz died Oct. 27, 2004 at his home in Bonita. He was 62. Following is a feature story about Diaz and his XLNC1 radio station.

Hit music is not noted for its longevity, but most of the hits played on XLNC1 have been around for centuries.

XLNC1 plays the "top 400 hits from the last 400 years," elegant, classical music without commercial interruption, although it does permit a few station breaks (in English, Spanish and French sometimes) and sponsorship announcements (usually in English), as well as the San Diego Metropolitan’s Daily Business Report at 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. (usually in good English).

But for the most part it is pure classical music, a language that knows no boundary. Selections run the gamut of classical tastes, from titanic Mahler symphonies, to quieter piano interludes, string quartets and other ensembles. XLNC1 is also the only local FM outlet for weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, one of radio’s longest running programs.

The daily schedule of classical selections is posted on the station’s Web site, www.xlnc1.org, allowing the listener with a computer the luxury of planning. More importantly, the outstanding reception on the World Wide Web gives xlnc1.org a worldwide audience, not just those San Diegans and Tijuanans tuning in to 90.7 FM. Even fans in an Australian mental hospital have written to assure the Chula Vista station that it has admirers among doctors and patients alike.

The Internet broadcasts, created by the station founder’s son Alex Diaz, actually predate the radio station, which won its government permits on Feb. 14, 2000. XLNC is produced in the same Chula Vista complex as the longtime favorite Spanish-language Radio Latina 104.5 FM, but its signal is sent throughout the region from a tower in Tijuana. XLNC also maintains offices in Tijuana. Some find it ironic that San Diego’s most sophisticated music 24/7 is broadcast from Tijuana; others find it merely satisfying. While KPBS-FM recently began airing classical music at night as a budgeting and scheduling convenience, XLNC1’s existence is a matter of passion and determination on the part of its founder, Victor Diaz, who owns the station with his wife Martha.

Of course, classical music fans are a passionate bunch, and because of the Internet, the station receives abundant and opinionated feedback, says Lisette Atala-Doocey, executive director of XLNC1. "We receive e-mails from all over the world, from Israel, Australia, and Antarctica," she says. "The Web site is very active. The audience makes suggestions like ‘play more (string) quartets at dinner time, and don’t play so many violin pieces, and more Pachabel Canon.’"

Closer to home, XLNC1 is heard in the Tijuana Airport, in the reading sessions of local schools, at Dobson’s, and at Ray’s Tennis, a sports specialty shop in Hillcrest, and in homes and offices from Ensenada to Carlsbad.

Atala-Doocey, who makes the final decisions on XLNC1’s playlist under the influence of Diaz, is from Mexico City and studied at the capital’s conservatory. Her piano studies took her to London and back to Mexico City before moving to San Diego because of her husband’s business interests. Working as a cultural attaché for the Mexican consulate, she met Victor Diaz, who had a dream about building a classical music station on this side of the border.

"When he was very young, Victor created a classical music station in Guadalajara and he wanted to duplicate that," Atala-Doocey says.

Diaz, who now lives in Chula Vista, is a lifelong broadcaster. His Califormula Broadcasting currently owns XLNC1 and Radio Latina and formerly owned Z-90 and Hot Country 933. But classical music radio is his passion, dating back to his teen years when his father sent him from Mexico with his brother to listen to classical music radio from a small New York City hotel room. They returned with play lists and records to an eager father who had established Guadalajara’s first radio station.

Today, XLNC1 draws from cultural resources on both sides of the border. The director of the Baja California Orchestra Eduardo Diazmunoz, who studied at the same Mexico City conservancy as Atala-Doocey, is a member of the station’s advisory board. XLNC1 promotes the Baja Orchestra’s concerts on the radio and the Web.

XLNC1 doesn’t hold grueling on-air pledge drives but does offer low-key opportunities for non-profit sponsorships and memberships on the air and on its Web site. Atala-Doocey credits Jean Oelrich, membership and development director, with successful membership drives that don’t tax listeners with never-ending pledge appeals. Major sponsors each are allocated one hour of classical music sponsorships with opening, middle and ending credits, and these sponsorship hours are rotated around the clock, so a sponsor’s hour is never the same from one day to the next. "Listeners congratulate us because we’re not too invasive and we don’t overdo it," she says.

So XLNC1 represents San Diego County’s — and Tijuana’s — only 24-hour classical FM service. That puts San Diego on a par with New York and ahead of cities like Detroit, which has an orchestra that appears frequently on records, but no classical radio station. "Mexico City just lost one of its oldest classical radio stations; there were demonstrations," Atala-Doocey says. Non-profit XLNC1 provides this service — more classical music reaching thousands more ears than the San Diego Opera, Symphony and local chamber orchestras combined — all on a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, just a small fraction of any one of San Diego’s prominent classical music organizations’ budgets.

"Victor Diaz’s contribution to classical music education in San Diego and Tijuana is unrivaled," says Nancy Laturno, executive director of the Mainly Mozart Festival, which operates in San Diego and Mexico. Laturno, too, sits on XLNC1’s advisory board.

Atala-Doocey says she’s interested in seeing younger audiences embrace classical sounds. "Classics have benefit for anyone including children from any background. Classical music has no boundaries or language barriers. Plus, classical music has hits that are as famous as the Beatles, like the ‘Four Seasons’ by Vivaldi that you hear in commercials."

And then there are the priceless benefits of child-rearing with classical music. Children who listen often behave better and perform better in math. What’s not to like about that?