Just recently, Oregon Public Broadcasting, aka OPB, which runs both a radio and TV station each, canceled a fantastic, free-form radio show that ran Fri/Sat/Sun nights by who we feel is the most amazing free-format radio DJ ever: one Mr. Steven Cantor. Better than anyone on KBOO as he was willing to play anything (one evening we heard a local string quartet as well as tracks from Autechre, because he had seen both play live locally that week) and focused on the music and merely relating as much of his encyclopedic knowledge about what he was playing that blabbing some agenda and/or lifestyle as KBOO radio hosts tend to do, and we think he had better chops than any of the very good to amazing DJs on the famous publically-funded N.J. station WFMU, which does excellent radio programs but none of which are truly the "cover the entire spectrum of all music without any bias" that Mr. Cantor did - his love of all styles of music, without exception, made and makes him uniquely the best at this type of show.
Here's the letter we wrote OPB to tell them to revoke our membership and that we would be supporting other locally funded radio stations:
We wish to revoke and cancel my membership, and be removed from all mailing lists, electronic or otherwise, that OPB has. We were upset when Performance Today was removed from the weekday programming, but the cancellation of Steven Cantor's "Beats & Pieces" free-form music radio show on Fri-Sun evenings is the last straw. Spending my money to hire expensive "consultants" to replace the show with one that has "more local and mainstream appeal" is not only a waste of my money that I will not tolerate, but goes against what Mr. Cantor's show was already doing: capturing and offering a lot of new and interesting music, often combined with classical and older music, with a strong emphasis on local - it was rare for him not to play music from local bands or ones that had played in Portland the week before, as Mr. Cantor obviously attends local musical events almost every day of the week.His support of local music and creating a radio show unique and suited to Portland was unprecedented and without peer, and the complaint that his show had low ratings (2000 listeners) is no only likely wrong: I have turned on dozens of people to his show myself and have a computer program set up to capture it to listen to later when I'm busy, but the time slot in which he was working is the worst possible one: Fri/Sat nights people are busy and out doing things, and Sun nights most people retire early to bed or to watch TV, and no change in programming during those time slots will increase listenership in any drastic way, no matter how much money you WASTE hiring OUT-OF-STATE contractors and "musical directors" to try to address this "make-believe" issue. I think Mr. Cantor put it best when he said that when OPB is worried about ratings and bringing in outside experts to create shows to attract audiences, then it is no longer playing a role as a publically funded radio station but is acting, in every way, like a commercial station.
If President Bass has decided he wants to run OPB, at least the radio division, which produces much of the listener generated money without the huge costs of the TV division, which costs far more than it brings in, then in my mind OPB has become in every way a commercial station, and can run adverts to support itself and no longer needs my support.
If you want to act like a commercial station, then turn into one, and don't expect me to ever send another penny to OPB to be wasted on the TV division which I don't watch, and so you can run a commercial station which can be funded like any other commercial one: with advertisers.
I have watched OPB change over the years, and I can't say there's been much improvement aside from finally offering OPB on the Internet as a stream, but otherwise it has been nothing but constant moves backwards: canceling Schickely (sp?) Mix, then Performance Today, and now Mr. Cantor, while Music Director David Christianson's rather lame and predictable weeknight show continues.
Your priorities and objectives are completely out of line both with the point and purpose of PUBLIC broadcasting as well as you listenership, and I hope you will find many others like myself who are sick of the cancellation of the shows we've enjoyed and made us regular listeners, to the point where you cannot operate without taking on more and more advertisers to where you eventually give up pretending to be a "public broadcasting" station any more.
Fortunately, due to the Internet, I can tune into the shows I do want to hear, and I will send my money to stations elsewhere in the country to support the programming I am interested in, but the cancellation of Mr. Cantor's show is irreplacable and as such, I no longer wish to have any association whatsoever with OPB.
There are also other local alternatives, such as the classical music station KBPS, the jazz station, KMHD, and of course, a true PUBLIC RADIO station, KBOO, and they will get my listenership and funding from hereon out.
Please cancel my membership immediately and remove me from all mailing lists, and do not ever contact me again. I am no longer an OPB listener and I intend to leave my OPB canvas bags at Goodwill and have already removed the sticker from my car. Good luck with your continued progress in grinding the OPB radio station into the ground and turning it into an AM-style "talk radio" blah blah blah station. You're doing that very well. Congrats.
We doubt OPB will listen or care or make even the slightest change based on this, but we've spoken our piece/peace and will simply no longer listen to their station, which seems to spend as much time running "Fund Drives" as not these days. Too stupid to realize they're getting less listener support because their programming choices are bad, and wasting money trying to run the station as if it was a commercial one is even worse. We can't decide where our tax dollars go, but we can sure decide where we donate our money and time. Fuck you OPB. We hope you go bankrupt running your money-losing TV station.