Banjer: me, too! KUWR at the University of Wyoming is totally indistinguishable from any other station on the dial except for its news programs.They took off the Saturday opera which had been on the airwaves in Wyoming ever since I and my family can remember; relegated all classic to the evening hours in direct competition with primtime tv viewing; those were/are the only available on-air classical music programs in Wyoming; moved Thistle & Shamrock to Sunday evenings; we get Car Talk TWICE(!); and, even their decent local shows have been dumbed down to a horrible mix of NOT THE BEST of bluegrass, country, and folk, with a tiny bit of Celtic thrown in.
They compete directly with the top 40 stations by playing hits and then play former hits, but not by the original artists, NO, they play lousy renditions by people I've never heard of.
My husband, Roger's theory is that ever since they joined in the NPR "you can buy the music you hear on here through our 800 number" is when their playlist became narrowly defined and it really SUCKS.
They started this two years ago. I called the station manager and went round and round with him, wrote letters to the editor and sent them to him. Withdrew my monthly monetary support and never tune in except for BBC news and a couple of other news shows, plus Prairie Home Companion.
The other thing they do is blatantly take news items from the paper and read them as news, the day after the story has been in the paper! It is a sad, sad state of affairs. Now I listen to Internet radio almost exclusively. In the car, I gave up and tune in mostly to the oldies, sometimes to the top 40; I do love those Bare Naked Ladies!
The dumbing down of public radio....bringing it down to the lowest common denominator.
katlaughing, but not very much!