Pledge Drive - Day 1... there is hope

[susandennis]

10 minutes after the radio went on this morning, they launched the Pledge Drive.   And I launched my PDA* program (Pledge Drive Avoidance).  I hope theirs was as successful as mine.  I had many online versions of Morning Edition and picked at random ending up in Los Angeles. 

Thankgod, my weather will not be what they were reporting!

Our National Public Radio touts itself as being commercial free.  They are non-profit but certainly not commercial free.  And in the past decade they have really become commercial laden.  I was amused to hear the commercials in LA.  Very different than Seattle's.  One was for a hospital named after Ronald Regan.  Kind of a rude awakening there.  I'm still pissed about the renaming after him of a certain DC airport - I cannot imagine what it would be like to wake up in a hospital named after him!  Yeah, I need to get over it.

I did discover that my USB speaker is just not that solid.  And when it loses it's USBness, just resetting it causes several programs to fail. 

So, basking for once in the glory of my hoarding, I dug out a small pair of Radio Shack speakers that I bought 4,000 years ago to get better sound out of my small transistor radio.  They plug into the speaker jack and work much better.  They look like they have been in some old lady's storage for decades, oh wait, they have... but they work great.

Tomorrow I may listen to an Arizona station.  I'm kind of looking forward to a couple of weeks of NPR Around The Country.

Comments

[lesliepear.livejournal.com]

I used to hate pledge drive weeks when Alan watched Sesame Street. I like your strategy!

[davmoo.livejournal.com]

I understand they have to raise money, but those fund raisers, and the ones for PBS TV too, seem to get more annoying every year...and every year I swear its impossible for it to get worse, and every next year they prove me wrong.

[susandennis]

I'm not even sure I buy, any more, the premise that they have to raise money via their pledge drive.

BUT, assuming they don't do it for fun (and I'm not entirely convinced that isn't true - the people I knew in Public Radio used to look forward to the pledge drives cause they didn't have to work as hard and got free food...)

All else aside, to hear the people I really admire as thinking, researched, articulate people blather on and on and on so very stupidly, makes me NUTS!!

Other than that, I'm ok with it... not

[susandennis]

There is something just fundamental in my dna that makes gives me so many more heebee jeebees about anything Regan.

But, the Bush Library is funny, I totally agree.

[judith.livejournal.com]

I feel like a traitor in a way. I no longer hear the pledge drives. I listen to public radio on xm. There is something off about that, it seems, yet...

[susandennis]

Oh that's a GREAT idea! I have been looking for a reason to look into xm radios... hmmmm

And I don't think you should feel guilty at all! I sure don't. I gave them money until it was clear that the only way to stop all the junk mail, phone calls and email harassment my donations netted, was to stop giving, I did. No guilt.

[judith.livejournal.com]

You make good points. I am sick of the advertising on public radio, but there is no avoiding it even on xm (but there's less).

And on that point, on xm music stations there isn't any advertising but on the talk stations there is. I get annoyed, thinking isn't that why I pay for this service - to get rid of advertising? But in fact it is only part of the deal and maybe not the most important part. What I get is reception almost anywhere almost all the time, all of the channels. So I keep paying.