Recession-proof?

It is impressive that WUNC was able to reach the goal that it apparently set for itself - 800,000 early! This morning they said 4,900 had contributed. (Updated on 3 May to "more than 6,000.) That is still such a startling small number.

They keep saying that they get no money from the State as in an on-air plug on 1 May. Literally, that is true, but who pays for their facility in Chapel Hill? See their annual reports. Who manages their back office? It's disingenuous to say what they are saying. When I checked a while ago, I think it amounted to something like 250,000/year but that needs to be verified.

Timing is everything....

Wouldn't one think that WUNC might view this week as being especially important to listeners with the primary next Tuesday? Perhaps important enough to schedule the prize-giving-fund-raising event at another time? Then again, the fund drive is not competing with a lot of hugely innovative and instructive programming orginating locally. This is it.

The Takeaway

This program started today. Another alternative to the WUNC wheel of fortune.......

BBC Newshour

For those wanting to avoid the WUNC wheel of fortune fund-raising, you can access the BBC Newshour directly here, twice a day (every day) -- starting at 8:05 AM EDT and 3:05 PM EDT. These are the best two hours of global radio news on the web, in my view. If I could listen to only an hour of radio each day, the Newshour would be it.

WUNC Events — North Carolina Public Radio WUNC

Why not in Chapel Hill or Durham, too?

Shorter pledge drive?

It seems so disingenuous to announce that x amount of money contributed to WUNC now will reduce the length of the "upcoming" fund drive by one day without telling listeners the starting point. I fear that WUNC is adjusting the length of time it raffles off various things depending on how much money it thinks can be raised. Candor would be a better approach. Why not tell us how many days the drive was to be, and announced that the drive is now down to a month instead of 40 days, or whatever they have in mind?

PETRAEUS hearings available from NPR but not noted by WUNC on its website.....

Nothing here once again about the fact that you can use the web to listen to the PETRAEUS hearings live on the NPR.org site. What is it about the word "service" that WUNC management does not understand?