[jjoyce]

I'm not wondering whether you pledge or not, I'm wondering how pledge week(s) changes your listening habits. Do you grit it out and listen anyway, tune in elsewhere or turn off the radio entirely?

I gotta say, my 5 minutes with WIBA this morning had me fumbling for the iPod on my drive in.

[Galoot]

I'm guilty of listening and not pledging, and when the pledge week is on, I tune into something else.

I give to WORT instead of NPR, and my rationalization is that NPR has lobbied against allowng micropower radio stations to get FCC licensing.

[roadkill bill]

I pledge and I grit it out. The pitches have gotten better and less pitiful. The prerecorded ones by Ira Glass are even funny.

The tactic this year of asking for money in advance and guaranteeing a shorter pledge drive seems to have worked, as they took 3 days off because of early responses.

Both WORT and WPR will be getting smaller pledges from me this year because of the economy, but I value the service and programming enough to kick in something each year.

[wallrock]

I pledge roughly once a year, usually in the fall. I sent in mine last week since they were doing the "take time off" thing - which I think is a great idea. I did tune to WSUM this morning during my drive when WERN broke into pledge mode. I changed back after about ten minutes to see if the news was back on, and I'd say overall I listen to less radio and more of my iPod during pledge week. Anytime I listen to commercial radio I usually change the channel when commercials come on, even when I'm listening to a ballgame on WIBA or WGN. Radio commercials are the worst.

I listen to NPR a whole lot, during commutes and when traveling through the state on business, and I do feel a responsibility to pledge. I spend a decent amount of time up in the NW part of the state, and consequently I've listened to a lot of WOJB off the LCO reservation. I've supported them the last few years as well. I've never really liked WORT well enough to pledge. There have always been a few shows that I really would enjoy, but these have always been in the minority. I figure a radio station needs to crack 50% on the like/dislike scale before I'll toss my money their way.

[Ned Flounders]

I also find that the pledge drives make me grit my teeth. I pretty much stop listening to the radio during the days when they're doing it.

We supported WPR even when I was in grad school and my wife was unemployed and we were living on a shoestring in one of those ugly tan brick apartment buildings on the South Side. So I was going to say that nobody above the level of borderline homeless should rationalize not donating (at least a few bucks) because of the economy.

BUT ... one truly can't do everything, and while we might have kept up our WPR donations there were other groups that we definitely cut out when we were poor. I guess my advice to someone living on the margin would be to give where you can and then don't worry about what you can't. If you're doing that, you can keep listening to WPR with a clean conscience.

My problem is that we're no longer poor, in fact we're doing pretty well these days. We could do a lot more than we do to help out. There's a natural tendency to let your old habits guide your giving, even when you're making a lot more than you used to. I need to remember that more often.

[scratch]

So I was going to say that nobody above the level of borderline homeless should rationalize not donating (at least a few bucks) because of the economy.

In the main I agree with Ned. We usually pledge to WORT and we used to pledge to WERN regularly, too. Most of our FM listening is to 88.7 and 89.9, but there are things about WERN that lead me not to pledge to them unless my wife insists.

Their mix of classical music to NPR news leans far too much to the classical music for my taste, or, for that matter, for my information needs. I have a fairly long commute so niceties like accurate weather reports and forecasts and a nodding acquaintance with breaking news items are a high priority for me. WERN tends to get a forecast in at 5 AM and then stay with it all day whether it proves to be within hailing distance of reality or not. And the year we had the giant traffic jam in the snow on I-90, it was still news to WERN by the time I fought my way home. They didn't transmit a word about the situation until the next day. My final weather gripe is that to judge by their coverage, WERN thinks their coverage area (and possibly the state of Wisconsin) end at the the beltline, or occasionally the Rock County line.

Then there's the NPR news thing. They run All Things Considered from 3-5:30, which means if you get off work at 5:00, you get one half-hour segment before they go to Market Place, Fresh Air and back to the all-important classical music. Other NPR stations run it all the way through twice (four half-hour segments constitute the daily ATC and NPR repeats the feed).

At other times, in other locales, we pledged to multiple NPR stations at times, but WERN doesn't do enough of what I need my public radio station to do, so from me it's just more money to the WORT-- and books on CD during pledge week.

[Thusnelda]

Who else gets particularly discouraged at the hourly pledge goals? Jim Fleming can only force his cheeriness so much; there's no way that having "only" 80 pledges to go in the last 10 minutes of each hour makes me feel better about their situation. If anything, my knee-jerk reaction says it makes them sound like they're going down the tubes fast, so why should I support a dying operation?

What's the rationale behind this? Is there some sort of strategery involved?

[feh23]

I stopped pledging to WPR about 5 years ago, and I'm still getting junk mail from them, which was the main reason I stopped pledging. I'd rather they didn't spend my donation on printing and sending out "ask letters" every couple months. Plus what they expect you to pledge for premiums is kind of outrageous. "Pledge $100 and get this coffee mug!", really? I don't listen to them all that much anymore, so I feel so bad. They're state wide so they have a larger listener/donor base to draw from, so it's really not all that unreasonable that they'd ask for 80 pledges per hour, or whatever. It doesn't mean they're failing, it just means they have way more listeners. Plus, they do get contributions from corporations, so they do have that additional income.

WORT, however, is a great station to pledge to in my opinion. No matter how much or little you pledge, you get a quarterly newsletter about what's happening on the station, which is generally interesting. They have the widest variety of music on the air, and I find their news and public affairs programming to be pretty informative. They have a much, much smaller listener base to solicit donations from since they only cover basically Dane county, and some areas abutting it. They take no corporate donations, so all their business related donations are from locally owned places. Plus, they have the best value when it comes to premiums...I don't think they've raised the pledge levels for CD's in a few years, and they've got way cooler teeshirts than WPR (who actually doesn't have a teeshirt).

[ilikebeans]

Who else gets particularly discouraged at the hourly pledge goals?
...
What's the rationale behind this? Is there some sort of strategery involved?

If I had to guess (and since I'm posting, I am), it's so the various show hosts have an incentive to keep pledge-rapping during their shift.

[towanda]

I used to donate to NPR but quit back when they unceremoniously fired Bob Edwards and lurched rightward. I listen to the classical music because there are no commercial classical stations around here, but when ATC comes on I usually play my own CDs.

[EastSideTom]

Here's a little something to help pass the time during the pledge drive. It's from WBEZ in Chicago. Just substitute WPR for WBEZ.

http://apps.wbez.org/blog/?p=6580

[fennel]

The "take time off" thing is a complete sham. It's similar to the de facto extension of the pledge drive whereby announcers consume air time effusively thanking contributors – and, by the way – making additional pleas. But in this case, they start barking weeks in advance. I't's basically dishonest – the noise time has increased, not decreased. ("But, hey, everybody's doing it").

I will say WPR is *far* from the worst of NPR stations in this regard, but I miss the days when Public Radio was clearly non-commercial. There used to be only credits (names only) on occasion. Now it's a barrage of ad copy.

Does anybody remember the musical interludes that are now replaced with ads?

Damn, we need a Slow Radio movement.

[stevewilliams]

I quit on WPR a couple years ago. I love radio, but when I'm home, I stay away, cause there no humor. Ideas net programs are so darn self absorbed and dead serious. The hosts don't seem all there, or too timid. I go with Stephanie Miller, Colin Cowherd, Dennis Miller, and Northern Illinois WNIJ Online (They have the best NRP news talk shows and World Cafe,) and get my Wisconsin news from the papers. (It's where WPR gets its news, too.)

WPR strives to be a museum exhibit rather than a vital interesting news source. I appreicate the Wisconsin focus, but good golly that place needs some air blown up its skirt! No innovation, no consideration of new programming, and some kind if crazy unofficial lifetime tenure for hosts who obviously sound bored.

[lolagirl]

Apart from Click'n'Clack, the general theme of WPR's pledge seems to be either guilt - "You listen, so now you have to give" or doom "We get very little gov't money; if you don't pledge we'll go off the air". The whole effect is one of grim determination; I've always had this mental picture of a beseiged bunker.

Listening to WORT on Saturday afternoon during its pledge drive I'm reminded of why I pledge to WORT but not WPR. Somehow WORT manages to make its pledge drive seem like a party that you've been invited to join. It's fun to listen to. People stop by, there's special guests, there's joking on the air. What a treat.

[feh23]

Listening to WORT on Saturday afternoon during its pledge drive I'm reminded of why I pledge to WORT but not WPR. Somehow WORT manages to make its pledge drive seem like a party that you've been invited to join. It's fun to listen to. People stop by, there's special guests, there's joking on the air. What a treat.

It's because they ARE having a party...trust me.