Rent's due at KUOW, for god's sake...

Time to give to your Fall money to news radio KUOW! Please.

Guaranteed: your money will buy NOTHING DIFFERENT. NO CHANGE WHATSOEVER.

But hey: those compound sentences won't make themselves: the station needs some dough to stay up and running.

And the faster you get those bucks* in their hands, the sooner they'll shut up and get back to the regular programming you love so much.

As critical as we are, and as unpopular we make ourselves being their only critic, KUOW remains very dear to us.

Despite KUOW's establishmentarian stodge, and resistance to the foresight we're so abundantly blessed with, we depend on KUOW for news, and talk that's not silly.

*Your small investment guarantees the uninterrupted continuation of the dayparts and voices you heard last year and the year before that and the year before that; the tired timeless Mr. Scher; the humorless penetrating Mr. Reynolds; the stolid solid Mr. Wang;  PLUS: historical Canadian news men, witty prime time gardening; environmental plumbing tips; drivelsome teenagers with microphones; borelords of the British Columbian cartels; urban night soil foragers; ecological rest rooms; establishmentarian political wonkie-donks; top former somebodies; cranky vegetarians; officious civil engineers; outspoken botanists; singing post-Colombian Mexican parking attendants; aging bureaucrats with talking points; aging talking points with Democrats; authors with 2 books; books with 2 authors; academic wank-doodles; long-winded semi-officials; celebrations of environmental synchronization, profound ambivalence, and mulching... BUT THERE'S MORE!:  HOURS AND HOURS OF THE RE-HASHED REHASH OF ALL OF THE ABOVE!!!

Comments

[Andrew]

I've decided that I prefer commercial radio. Commercial radio is true to the free market. Commercial radio doesn't put a guilt trip on me, or give me a show, then rip it from my hands, and say they'll give it back just as soon as they reach their goal, just as soon as I pay up.

Commercial radio feels free to express any and every opinion. It prmotes confrontation. It's dynamic, ever changing, interesting. It cares about what I want.

Beg-for-funding radio pretends it's impartial while maintaining a strong liberal bias. It goes out of it's way to avoid offending anyone, even when covering the least controversial subject of the day. They always speak in hushed tones, muting human emotion and white-washing our colorful flaws in favor of a sanitized, pseudo progressive, sterile chronicling of the liberal zeitgeist. It's not for me.

[Andrew]

Victory for the KRKO towers http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20101013/NEWS01/710139804

[Pete]

I'm as capable of ridiculing KUOW as anyone (check out Irrational Public Radio in the BW links - it's hilarious). But Andrew - seriously - if six minute commercial stop sets doesn't constitute "give me a show, then rip it from my hands, and say they'll give it back just as soon as they reach their goal," I don't know what does. And that's 24/7/365. At least with KUOW you can just go away for a week or so until it's over. On KIRO, a week never passes by where I'm not reminded every few minutes that mortgage rates have never been lower.

Pledge drives suck, but given a choice between that or Dori selling Gutter Helmets, I...um...well...

iPod. Yep.

[Andrew]

The thing about commercial radio spots is that they are evenly spaced and consistant, and you get so used to hearing the same ads that they become white noise very quickly. Pledge drives are abrupt, jarring and completely depriving. During that pledge week, you get virtualy no real radio at all.

And you didn't address the freedom of expression angle. When I listen to commercial talk radio there's a sense that you don't know what they're going to say next, it could be something wild and controversial. Granted, they want to get people worked up so they'll stay tuned in, but when you listen to NPR you can be assured that everyone will sound like they're shot full of ritalin, nobody's toes will be stepped on, and if anything exciting happens, it will most assuredly be of an acedemic nature.

Same situation with the news. Commercial radio news will report all sorts of things, celebrities, freakshows, rubbernecky sort of stuff. NPR will also report things that are of little relevance to my life, but it will be happenings in the Congo, or Hungary, or Kosovo. As long as I'm forced to listen to something that matters little to me, I might as well get a good laugh out of it.

Also some unsolicted free advice about your website http://www.irrationalpublicradio.com/episodeguide.html should be the first page anyone sees, and order it newest to oldest. Your navigation links are images, everyone assumes they are banner ads nowadays. Also stick with one font throughout.

[rich]

xm maybe the best way to provide interesting content

[TomF]

XM is a dying proposition, overtaken by ubiquitous web-streamed content. A fate that may also sink terrestrial radio BTW.

KUOW is the raw vegetable platter of our information menu. We know we're supposed to like it, it's good for us, and a lot of us claim to consume it. But in fact it's not very appetizing, relentlessly bland, and a chore to eat.

I hate the imputation of guilt for listeners who don't send checks -- I wish they would just play some damn commercials instead. I really don't like that KUOW assumes its audience is of a lockstep progressive mindset - it's exclusionary. And it's aggressively, proactively boring, as if being interesting, funny or provocative is against their charter.

In the end, Seattle progressivism is brittle, intolerant, hypersensitive, and dull, and KUOW reflects its mien perfectly.

[Andrew]

Don't write off XM/Sirius. Unlike commercial radio, or NPR, or free podcasts, it's listeners provide the companies with a constant stream of revenue, revenue which can fund a level of quality and access the others can't match. XM/Sirus subscribers currently enjoy Howard Stern, audio streams of CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, the Fox News channels, and uncensored comedy among other things. That might not knock your socks off, but you have to appreciate what can potentialy be offerred to listeners of subscription radio. And at the moment podcasts are low revenue operations and frequently lack professionalism that listeners of traditional radio have come to expect.

[MstngSally]

XM/Sirius needs to adjust their billing structure. One can actually negotiate with them on the monthly charge and many are not paying full price. I suspect they may be hurting?

[Andrew]

Yeah, they're hurting for money, but even successful companies will negotiate on price if they believe a customer is on the verge of cancelling a service. I've had this happen with cellphone providers and similar services. They're counting on the fact that most customers have the moral character to not fein financial distress or disinterest in the product to provoke them into offerring lower rates.

Thanks to the Internet, users of such services are getting together and discussing their experiences to figure out how to game companies that have those policies. I frequented a car forum whose members traded instructions on how to manipulate XM trial offers and then negotiate lower rates. Myself, I'd rather pay the extra few bucks rather than have to call someone up and lie to them. I'm not even religious and even I think that's pretty low.

[rich]

you can dicker with comcast from what I hear.

[Chucks]

I'm just hearing the Jazz right now, but last week KPLU was whining, sniveling, begging and groveling for the cash.

[Pete]

Andrew, you really think I run the IPR site? That's flattering, but I'm not that talented.

Don't disagree with your characterization of public radio programming; they literally train people to enunciate in the NPR style, which is one reason it's so easy to parody. But given a choice between NPR gardening tips and Dori or Ron & Don or any of the national lowest common denominator voices being outraged - OUTRAGED - yet again, I tend to listen to sports talk. It's harmless, and people actually seem to have fun.

As for pledge vs. commercials, same thing. With rare exceptions, I tune them both out. I suspect a lot of other people do, too.

[Pete]

you really think I run the IPR site?

Actually, looking back at my previous post, I can see how you got that impression - I didn't word it clearly. But IPR is a bunch of LA voice actors and parodists, as their site explains.

[Dori Sanchez]

Used to like listening to Weekend America ages ago. I always thought Dave Beck was extremely boring so I'd tune the radio to something else during the week. To my horror, after WA went off the air, I hear, "This is Weekday and I'm Dave Beck.
Holy crap. It's freaking Saturday, not a weekday. So they're pretty much unlistenable. PHC is getting pretty played so, time to shake it up over there.

[The Anti-Dori]

Commercials do not become white noise. They are mindless, repetitive, mind-grinding brain-damaging insanity-inducing propaganda pieces.

[sparky]

PHC has a gajillion fans.. My friend Fred Newman is the voice deity for sound effects on their "away" shows. He makes a healthy living working just part time for them.

[Andrew]

I'd rather hear "Jorve Roofing Jorve Roofing Jorve Roofing Roof Roof Roof" than "It takes money to keep the lights on and bring you such wonderful content week after week so even if you've never pledged before it's never too late to start, and if you've contributed in the past then maybe its time to think about renewing your membership any amount you can spare gets us closer to our micro-goal, even a pledge of as little as $100 goes a long way towards bringing you the kind of content you won't find anywhere else on the dial... that's right Jim... Nancy from Nantucket just pawned her dentures to place a pledge for $2,300, thank you Nancy!"