I also like the ability to change genre of music with SiriusXM. The OTR
station definitely isn't particularly enlightened, but given good fortune
in the luck of the programming draw, it can sure help a long car trip be
more enjoyable. I force my wife to negotiate with them every year to get a
better rate. She out did herself this year-the full version for both of
our cars for $100 a year each. I used to give more than that to the local
FM Classical NPR station. I went over and manned a phone during pledge
time. Now it seems like almost every week they take away the music so they
can have a fund raising event. No doubt they are doing a Memorial Day fund
raiser. They do Mother's Day and Valentine's Day and Christmas and
Thanksgiving, and God knows what else. The scripted repetitive nonsense
they broadcast during these events makes one assume they think we are all
morons. If you added up all the regular full Monty fund drives, the
special event fund drives and the 10 second commercials, there is far more
down time, with little or no music, than any of the commercial stations.
Both of the local NPR stations make you listen to 20 seconds of commercial
every time you tune in the streaming version. I often wondered if the FM
stations couldn't let me pay an annual fee, and then allow me to listen
without the fundraising drivel. Maybe something that accesses the extra
band width, like their service for the visually impaired. I have also
wished that they would spend less money on their syndicated programming,
and just play classical music, maybe from their own library, like they used
to. Interesting to note that Robert Aubry Davis, one of the XM Sirius
Symphony Hall announcers, used to be at our local station in upstate New
York. I am very pessimistic about the future of classical FM in my area,
and I guess I wouldn't miss them much. Too bad.
On Sat, May 24, 2014 at 11:13 PM, Randy A. Riddle <[log in to unmask]>wrote:
> I listened to public radio for many years. I think what happened was that
> it lost track of its original vision to educate.
>
> The public radio stations in my area are basically running many of the same
> talk or music series that have been around since the 1980s. There doesn't
> seem to be anything there I've not heard before or seen around the
> Internet.
>
> For me, public radio was at its best in the 1970s when it acted as a kind
> of curator for the best or most interesting in what was happening in
> serious music or the arts. It was the place you would turn to to hear new
> classical works or new recordings of classical music, experiments in radio
> drama, or what was happening in music scholarship.
>
> A good example is a weekly show I wish I could recall the name of that came
> from one of the public radio networks and, each week, featured vintage jazz
> and big band recordings - I recall one whole episode was just devoted to
> V-Discs.
>
> At other times, my local public radio stations featured regular broadcasts
> of classic Old Time Radio - Suspense, the Great Gildersleeve, Jack Benny
> and other programs.
>
> Sure, much of this material is available now on the Internet or satellite
> radio stations. Public radio could find its voice again by being a curator
> and gateway into what's worth my time, rather than being either background
> classical Muzak for a day at the office or offering the "comfort food" of
> "Prairie Home Companion". It's just stale.
>
> I like Sirius XM because it allows me to sample genres of music that I
> don't know much about or listen deeper into a genre catalogue to figure out
> what I might like or not like - the same thing that public and college
> radio used to do for me many years ago.
>
> The OTR channel is a little conservative for my taste, repeating many of
> the same "war horses" that I've heard many times before, but at least it's
> something.
>
> Randy
>
>
--
Frank B Strauss, DMD
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