[log in to unmask] wrote:

>Your point is well taken, Steve, though I really wasn't thinking
>conspiracy, just a tendency I observe with those folks to think advocacy is
>more important than the arts.

I have no doubt that this is the case.  Public radio is mainly concerned
with left liberal advocacy.  I say this not as a conservative but as a
slightly left of center person who often is in agreement with their agenda.

>Although there have been other casualties over the years, it was Lurtsema's
>show which re-introduced me to Classical Music, after an adolescence spent
>in rock, and the show was unique because of his style.  It probably didn't
>generate high numbers.  That seems to be at least part of the purpose of
>Public Broadcasting, providing alternatives to the big 3 networks and top
>40.

iT SEEMS that there can be tension between the NPR folks and the local
stations.  About 20 years ago Frank Mankiewicz, then PBS boss, tried hard
to have WGBH (Boston) carry their Morning Edition instead of Robert J.,
ridiculing Robert J's rather idiosyncratic style of delivering the news,
and dismissing him as " a classical disk jockey".  This despite the fact
that WBUR already carried all the NPR stuff any sane person in the Boston
area would want.  I think that Mankiewicz would have carried the day if
Robert J.  had not been so popular.

With Robert J.  gone, WGBH still manages to broadcast a good deal of
classical music in addition to the obligatory NPR chit-chat.  Doug Briscoe
is not nearly as flamboyant as Luerstma, but he knows his stuff.  In
contrast, WBUR, which once was a pretty decent classical station, now
devotes ALL of its time to news and talk.

Bernard Chasan