*Agreed. Also, their political slant is invariably to the left-liberal side
of nearly every issue. Gave up on PHC on Saturday nights but still listen
to the "American Roots" program later on those nights, a HUGE improvement
over what the "Thistle and Shamrock" show had become by the end. *
*
*
*Other than that, we listen to WCVT, WDEV and shortwave; we don't get
broadcast or cable TV, but we sometimes rent DVD flicks to watch. WCVT
does, however, tend to play roughly the same "top forty" classical pieces
every day, just like the same programming they base theirs on at WCRB in
Waltham, MA, to which I listened since I was a little kid. And I'll never
forgive them for dumping the late Karl Haas ("It was a business decision"
and "We're aiming at the younger audience.")*
*
*
*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Haas
*
On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 3:12 PM, T. Andrew Hooper <[email protected]> wrote:
> I hate to join a fray such as this one, but NPR/VPR are long-standing pet
> peeves of mine.
> Why, you ask? Okay, if you insist....
>
> NPR
>
> I think that the actions of NPR in 2000 when the FCC planned to opening up
> low-power FM for free licensing to local non-profit stations is reason
> enough to not afford this organization the benefit of the doubt. This was
> perhaps one of the only things to liberalize ANYTHING that came out of the
> Bush-42 Executive Branch, and our friends at NPR were right there to stop
> it.
>
> These are a lot of links, just read the first unless you are really
> interested.
>
> http://www.fcc.gov/Speeches/Kennard/Statements/2000/stwek080.html
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/27/business/fcc-heads-for-showdown-with-congress-over-radio-plan.html
> http://www.npr.org/about/press/000406.lpfmlegislation.html
>
> http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=1&nav=messages&webtag=ab-pirateradio&tid=170
>
> NPR was one of the most outspoken and persuasive opponents of the FCC plan,
> succeeding in preventing the creation of hundreds or perhaps thousands of
> non-NPR affiliate community radio stations. [The FCC rule changes would have
> reduced the required engineering for new radio stations under a particular
> wattage].
>
>
> VPR
>
> I enjoy quite a bit of the VPR programming, but their locally produced
> content is around 20%, maybe not even that high. [It was higher in the
> pre-Vogelzang era, but mostly because they played concertos for three hours
> every morning.] That has to be compared to stations like WGDR (75+% locally
> produced) and WDEV (again, 75+% local content).
>
> When I listen to the VPR fund-raising I would swear that these guys and
> their tote-bags are responsible for every minute of the broadcast, not for
> one hour (repeated twice a day) on weekdays and a lot of weather reports.
> And how do they make a 90-minute newscast into a 150-minute newscast?
>
>
> *feh*
> Andy
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: [email protected] <[email protected]>
> Sent: Sat, 11/7/2009 1:47am
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: Source verses Destination...
>
> And I should add, I think VPR's goverment funding is less than 10%,
> last I heard - I can honestly say that the threat of loss of
> government funding is not an influence on content at VPR.
>
> Asa
>
