20 September 2007

National Public


The shake-up in Public Radio continues. I know, like who cares? It is a niche network, a boutique media outlet, but it serves an important function in a lot of lives around here.

Many of us are recovering news junkies, and here in Washington it is not unusual to have a friend or neighbor pop up in the Post or appearing before Congress. It is useful to know what is going on, and has real application to daily life.

Tampering with It feels like direct assault, since the National Public people reach right into my unit in Big Pink and envelope me most of the day. I have complained querulously at each format-changing outrage as I drift toward geezer-hood, and it never seems to do much good.

The latest changes to the radio line-up come with a garnish of gall, since they are recruiting volunteers for the phone-banks for the annual fund drives.

It must be precarious living off the kindness of Volvo-driving, cappuccino-sipping others. Just in case you are a little removed from the Beltway hot-house, a little background on this national public scandal might be useful.

WAMU broadcasts from the campus up on the heights of the District, kitty corner from the campus of the Department of Homeland Security near Ward Circle.

The station has been home since inception to some odd niche programming. The afternoons were filled with Bluegrass country music programming years ago, which drove my boss nuts when I played it in the little office on the ground floor of the Navy Bureau of Personnel.

He always growled about what he called “Ridge Runner” music, but he is dead now and can't complain, and the Bureau moved to Tennessee.

I think it cut too close to his southern roots, and he was sensitive to being too close to the culture in the movie “Deliverance.”

The Bluegrass migrated to weekends, over time, but had some fierce partisans. A Sunday staple was a show called "Stained Glass Bluegrass," which consisted of primitive country religious tunes.

When I turned on the radio on Sunday morning it almost made me spill the coffee all over the computer.

It was a vestige of the time when Washington was a sleepy Southern town most of the time, not a melting pot of dozens of ethnic groups, high-energy lobbyists and uber-politicians.

Until two years ago, there were two classical stations in town, one commercial the other WETA, the Public Radio station that broadcasts from here in Arlington. WETA went "all talk," at that point, since the donation base apparently was decaying with the key demographic- which is to say, me and some old lady in Clarendon.

Behind the scenes, financial pressure was building. In a remarkable brokerage of interests, WETA joined staff with the commercial classical station, which went to Spanish programming or something, and shed all the great talk shows, including the BBC's World Update, Prairie Home Companion and Car Talk.

They now carry only NPR news on the hour, and classical music the rest of the time, exclusively.

It is a little sad to hear good presenters of the news now talking exclusively about the early life of composers, but I suppose you do what you have to do.

The uproar in the public radio community was significant.

WAMU quickly picked up many of the newly orphaned shows, including World Update, though they trimmed ten minutes at the end for a financial show from the West Coast. Bluegrass continued to fill the weekends, which clashed with the new line-up; mass market upscale talk colliding with deep country on Sundays.

I listened to WAMU during the week, and switched back to WETA on Sundays to escape the twang and banjos. The signal strength was also an issue; WAMU just did not have the watts to punch through the concrete of Big Pink, and I had to upgrade my radios and antennas. When I turned on the set on my desk Sunday mornings, the country music came as a shock as profound as a cold salt water bath.

Apparently WAMU agreed. The long-time listener base was passionate about their Bluegrass; new arrivals like me were equally adamant that BBC programming was a vital counterpoint to the American myopia in the news.

There were only so many hours in the broadcast day, and the arrangement continued until this Monday, when a bold stroke was attempted to assuage everyone.

Remember, this is largely supported by donation, so the pure rules of the market do not apply.

It is a bit like the license fee you pay at home; there is a sense of entitlement on the part of the listeners that needed to be placated.

Accordingly, WAMU took a bold move. They split the daily line-up into an all-NPR talk format, broadcast on the analog frequency. Two new channels were spun off, but available only on high definition digital. The first of them is all-Bluegrass, with mostly recorded, but with the old live presenters on the weekend. The second is BBC talk programming, both of which are invisible to the analog world.

This is marginally acceptable, but it requires me to adopt a whole new technology. I need to run out and buy an HD radio. I was thinking about that this morning, lamenting the fragmentation of the market in this increasingly narrow-cast high definition world of iPods, personal MP-3s, and internet streaming. I want radio in a format I can listen to in my car, or walking around the block on my transistor radio.

Now there are no transistors, and none of it is as nice as hitting the button on the dashboard of the car. None of us were asked about this latest move, and now I am now being dunned for support by two radio stations for contributions to support a "free" resource that amount to hundreds of dollars each year. They also helpfully ask for a favorable mention in my estate planning, and are willing to drop by and take my car if I am willing to give it.

And on top of it all, I have to purchase a new radio for the privilege of listening.

Of interest, the station subsidized the new radios for the Bluegrass listeners.

Management probably checked the demographic and saw that the Bluegrass listeners also belong to the National Rifle Association.

Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsococtra.com

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