“Public Radio Makes Us Better Listeners”

A favorite local author, Nicole Brodeur with the Seattle Times has penned a paean to public radio for Public Radio Month, and just in time for various pledge drives.

We know what we’ve got up and down the dial here — jazz, bluegrass, classical, blues — and we support it, because public radio makes us better listeners.

It’s a give and take — and give. And it’s worth it.

Seattle is a public radio city, staunchly supporting four stations in Seattle proper, plus community stations in Everett and Bellevue.  We also support a number of public and community TV stations, and we have a number of live local venues that feed the public media by bringing to town authors, political figures, thinkers, philosophers, and fantastic musicians of all kinds.  It’s a city of smart people who value education.

By not being held hostage by gutter cleaners and mattress stores, public stations are open to suggestions and programming, which only helps us as listeners…

“Public radio does what it does for the same reason we put out records,” said Chris Jacobs, general manager of Sub Pop! Records, which has signed many Seattle bands who were first played by KEXP.  “They are just playing music that they like and care about and think is important,” Jacobs said.

Commercial radio, on the other hand, makes its decisions based on other factors…

Those “other factors” are what drove classical music station KING-FM to go from being a commercial to a public station last May…

On April 27, KING-FM will celebrate the month — and its one-year anniversary — with a performance and interview with cellist Joshua Roman…

And the phones will ring.

Thanks for appreciating our work, Nicole.  We love yours, too.

About Marty Ronish

Marty Ronish is an independent producer of classical music radio programs. She currently produces the Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcasts that air 52 weeks a year on more than 400 stations and online at www.cso.org. She also produces a radio series called "America's Music Festivals," which presents live music from some of the country's most dynamic festivals. She is a former Fulbright scholar and co-author of a catalogue of Handel's autograph manuscripts.

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