MARCONI DREAMS

It’s a seasonal ritual as dependable as crispy leaves. Public radio employees roll up their sweater sleeves and actually sell something. Don’t knock it, you smug commercial radio guys; it’s a revenue stream you’d love to have — from people who don’t have to, but send money to you anyway, because they love you. Nevertheless, to my jaded ears, it sounds a little weird to hear people asking for money to preserve a three-hour blues show on a Saturday afternoon, a perfect day in October at that, when blues fans–who might prefer to listen to their favorite music well after dark–are presumably out raking leaves. Or catching a nap in preparation for a Saturday night of all-out boogie. What hardcore blues fan would set aside Saturday afternoons for radio, when they could download and/or listen to their own records anytime. And they could make a commitment to another kind of pay radio — either XM or Sirius offers a blues channel, 24-7. But if I think that way I get ahead of the game, and miss the point. Public radio inspires a loyal audience, and they only get stronger when they know the audience is paying a sizeable portion of their salaries. With all its warts — like what the begging does to the sound of their radio stations — public radio comes off much less commercial that public TV, which just last week seemed to spend more time on WWII than the U.S. Army did. And while I chuckle when I hear the awfully nice, educated voices of Northwest Public Radio chatting, oh so genteel-ly, about the soulfulness of the wailin’ blues track they just played, I’ll restrain my satirical side. You rock, ladies. Though NWPR’s network of locally-located FM stations have no room for hometown programming in the towns and cities they serve — just the satellite feed from Washington State University — it’s hard to argue with success: NPR’s morning and afternoon news-based shows sit on top the ARBITRON ratings in most U.S. cities. Link: Northwest Public Radio