SC ETV Radio's entering the "last" day of its first pledge drive of 2011 $61,000 short. That's of a $260,000 goal. They dredge up their producers as on-air shills every time they have a pledge drive, which begs the question- given how little original programming ETV Radio does, what do producers do all the time?
Yesterday they were about $80,000 shy and, as this morning, crowing that it would be made up in no time. This morning they are "imploring" people to donate. For $120 they will sell you a golf umbrella. "It has a 54 inch arc!" For $1200 they'll give you an IPod. With a bunch of NPR stuff on it. Not even Roland Alston's minstrelsy garden moments with a link to Webby Debbie in the chat room. Not even Rudy Mancke's quarter century old bug and snake shows.
Sadly, all they have to offer day to day is that they run a lot of expensive NPR and PRI shows.
Anyone with a computer can listen to those anywhere on the Internet and get a better level of service than ETV Radio offers. That's the challenge ETV faces but doesn't seem to recognize: they aren't the only game in town any more. They are peddling the line that contributors are "partners" in their enterprise. That's nonsense. Send an email to the president of ETV Radio about their inexplicable signal drops- where they just go off the air with no warning and no explanation- and you'll get no answer. None. Nada. Ever.
Here's an example I've cited before. ETV Radio jumps up and down about offering "Says You," the word game show. For several hundred bucks you can get tickets to a live show in Charleston.
The show runs an hour, but ETV Radio only runs half of it.
Similarly, Michael Feldman's show, "What do you know?" is coming to Spartanburg, and ETV Radio is flogging tickets to that event in return for grossly inflated contributions.
That show runs two hours; ETV Radio only runs one. So if you spend $120 on tickets you could get cheaper at the box office and then want to hear it again on ETV Radio, you only get half what you paid for.
I listen to "Says You" in its full version over the Internet, from KUOW in Seattle. That station has a real news department, not just a subscription to the Post & Courier. They produce hours and hours of their own programming. ETV Radio produces one minute nature and gardening shows and historical notes by Walter Edgar. If you want really dazzling public radio you can get the BBC on the Internet, or WNYC in New York.CBC does wonderful local and regional programming- all it requires is a staff person who actually knows something.
ETV Radio doesn't seem to realize that if they went back to their old model- making more of their own programming- they wouldn't need to raise so much money in cheesy campaigns like this week of '70s pop songs highlighting your "love" for ETV Radio.
I've been a fan of public radio since it began. It pains me to romp on ETV Radio, and I also know it has no effect whatever. But somebody's got to point out- amid their orgies of self-congratulation- they are a lazy, sloppy outfit that can't even do segues from NPR to their local snake handler minute without cutting stories off in mid-sentence. College radio DJs can do better than that.
To be as short of their goal as they are after a week of flogging their "excellent" ought to be teaching ETV Radio a lesson. It'd probably improve their lot if they adopted the ad campaign of a national pizza chain and admit they are a mediocre, sad-sack operation and want to re-invent themselves to be something good, and original, and offering more than "I Heart ETV" red love mugs. 15 ounces of your favorite beverage.
ETV Radio is a telephone boiler room with an antenna on the roof.
The governor wants to zero out funding for public broadcasting, but that's because she is a philistine. If she was a serious capitalist tool, as she pretends, she'd sell it off to the private sector, which would make it into something like public radio everywhere else- something good. Something really "educational".
Yesterday they were about $80,000 shy and, as this morning, crowing that it would be made up in no time. This morning they are "imploring" people to donate. For $120 they will sell you a golf umbrella. "It has a 54 inch arc!" For $1200 they'll give you an IPod. With a bunch of NPR stuff on it. Not even Roland Alston's minstrelsy garden moments with a link to Webby Debbie in the chat room. Not even Rudy Mancke's quarter century old bug and snake shows.
Sadly, all they have to offer day to day is that they run a lot of expensive NPR and PRI shows.
Anyone with a computer can listen to those anywhere on the Internet and get a better level of service than ETV Radio offers. That's the challenge ETV faces but doesn't seem to recognize: they aren't the only game in town any more. They are peddling the line that contributors are "partners" in their enterprise. That's nonsense. Send an email to the president of ETV Radio about their inexplicable signal drops- where they just go off the air with no warning and no explanation- and you'll get no answer. None. Nada. Ever.
Here's an example I've cited before. ETV Radio jumps up and down about offering "Says You," the word game show. For several hundred bucks you can get tickets to a live show in Charleston.
The show runs an hour, but ETV Radio only runs half of it.
Similarly, Michael Feldman's show, "What do you know?" is coming to Spartanburg, and ETV Radio is flogging tickets to that event in return for grossly inflated contributions.
That show runs two hours; ETV Radio only runs one. So if you spend $120 on tickets you could get cheaper at the box office and then want to hear it again on ETV Radio, you only get half what you paid for.
I listen to "Says You" in its full version over the Internet, from KUOW in Seattle. That station has a real news department, not just a subscription to the Post & Courier. They produce hours and hours of their own programming. ETV Radio produces one minute nature and gardening shows and historical notes by Walter Edgar. If you want really dazzling public radio you can get the BBC on the Internet, or WNYC in New York.CBC does wonderful local and regional programming- all it requires is a staff person who actually knows something.
ETV Radio doesn't seem to realize that if they went back to their old model- making more of their own programming- they wouldn't need to raise so much money in cheesy campaigns like this week of '70s pop songs highlighting your "love" for ETV Radio.
I've been a fan of public radio since it began. It pains me to romp on ETV Radio, and I also know it has no effect whatever. But somebody's got to point out- amid their orgies of self-congratulation- they are a lazy, sloppy outfit that can't even do segues from NPR to their local snake handler minute without cutting stories off in mid-sentence. College radio DJs can do better than that.
To be as short of their goal as they are after a week of flogging their "excellent" ought to be teaching ETV Radio a lesson. It'd probably improve their lot if they adopted the ad campaign of a national pizza chain and admit they are a mediocre, sad-sack operation and want to re-invent themselves to be something good, and original, and offering more than "I Heart ETV" red love mugs. 15 ounces of your favorite beverage.
ETV Radio is a telephone boiler room with an antenna on the roof.
The governor wants to zero out funding for public broadcasting, but that's because she is a philistine. If she was a serious capitalist tool, as she pretends, she'd sell it off to the private sector, which would make it into something like public radio everywhere else- something good. Something really "educational".
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