Idiots. Just what people want to listen to on a Sunday morning. Politics. The fools running WAMU need to spend a weekend listening to public radio in Chicago, Detroit, New York, L.A. and take some serious notes.

I was initially concerned with the loss of local programming and the conversion of WAMU into a repeater station for nationally-syndicated shows directly available -- without beg-a-thons and "underwriter acknowledgement" commercials – on satradio.

Then I heard from propeller-heads who seriously question the HD Radio monopoly’s broadcast system as well the reception quality.

See notionscapital.wordpress.com/2007/09/03/a-hole-in-the-air/

this is how i felt when wamu put the kibosh on jazz programming back in the day...
radio is a fickle lover...alas...

I welcome this decision. Devoting hours of airtime to a niche (at best) music format vs. more quality syndicated NPR talk shows? Give me the latter. Get rid of the Thistle and Shamrock, while you're at it.

This decision is terrible specifically because it removes virtually all of WTMD from the DC airwaves except during graveyard hours.

In its place, we esentially get more talk and duplicative reruns of Kojo and Diane on the non-Bluegrass HD stream.

DC is one of the few markets that has zero non-com AAA/college music programming (beyond the now heavily scaled-back TMD). Why bluegrass is so much more important than AAA is absolutely beyond me.

AAA is a broad format that plays the artists that routinely pack local venues (9:30, Birchmere, Black Cat, et al), but are heard absolutely nowhere else on the local airwaves. What's more, since TMD is sort of local, it promoted local shows and actually helped to nurture the local music community (something satellite radio could never do). If you're over 15 and have more than a passing interest in pop/rock/folk music, there is now nothing for you on the radio.

Why is bluegrass, a micro-genre, getting 24-hour coverage, while the huge, wide gulf of music covered by AAA, which lies between the micro-formats and the bland commerical radiosphere, relegated to graveyard? Is bluegrass really serving the community more than WTMD would, to such a disproportionate degree that this timeshare would reflect?

WAMU may have a history of bluegrass, but that doesn't mean there are very many listeners compared to AAA in this transitory city.

This sucks. Bluegrass makes hangovers go away!

boo to WAMU. very disappointing.

Jeffrey:

Corporate underwriters are more interested in news-blather radio. Bluegrass -- and other locally-focused programming – built WAMU.

Terrestrial radio stations have only one advantage over satradio: they are local – they file maps of transmission coverage areas with the FCC. Exiling locally-produced programs on a format nobody hears so you can re-broadcast nationally-syndicated shows which are available on Sirius and XM is a recipe for disaster.

What a relief! I used to enjoy listening to Weekend Edition on WETA, and then they switched to classical and I had to make WAMU my regular radio station - except on Sundays. I don't like bluegrass, and I loathe the endless "my mother/significant other died but it's okay cause we'll meet again in heaven" of Stained Glass Bluegrass.

So, thanks, WAMU. I'll be glad to be able to keep the radio on all weekend once again. And I'll back that gratitude up with membership dues.

"Local" does not necessarily mean "bluegrass," first of all.
I'm sure that fans of this format are bummed. If there was a station for me and my friends that only played late-90s indie rock, I'd sure be bummed if it changed formats.
That wouldn't mean the station was making the wrong move, though. People with musical taste outside the mainstream just have to deal with it. I don't get to hear Pavement on WAMU, either. I've learned to live with that reality.
I'd also advise people not to fall prey to paranoid conspiracy theories about corporate underwriters. Large companies would prefer their names be associated with higher rated programming. They don't have some sort of intrinsic hatred for bluegrass music.
Likewise, radio programmers -- public or private -- have one responsibility: broadcasting material they think will attract the biggest audience. WAMU may learn later they're making a mistake. I'd bet the farm they won't.

I'll miss stained glass bluegrass, but I won't buy HD radio to get it.

Anyone know if Hot Jazz Saturday night is staying? If that got kiboshed too, then I'll be very sad.

I have HD Radio in my car. It makes the music sound marginally better, but it does cut in and out at times. Public Radio stations seem to be the most fervent adopters of HD. You can drive all around the East Coast and pick up Public Radio stations broadcasting with HD. Sometimes they have other streams, sometimes they don't.

I happened to find a radio that had it built right in, so I didn't have to buy another component. Most radios though, are only "HD Ready".

I'm pretty pissed about all the changes that WAMU has wrought over the last 4 years. I hate Prarie Home Companion with a seething passion. I really miss American Routes coming on after HJSN. And to put Dick Spottswood out to pasture is pretty shameful if you ask me. (All the while we're stuck with FOUR HOURS of old timey radio Sunday nights). I always liked WAMU weekends for the very reason that it wasn't just like WAMU on the weekdays.

I used to give them money. No longer.

HD Radio is the patented technology of the iBiquity Digital Corporation. It is the only FCC-approved system for AM and FM. It is not the only In-Band, On-Channel (IBOC) broadcast system out there. That is why there is consumer, broadcaster, and auto manufacturer resistance -- everybody remembers Betamax.

I just checked out the preview schedule (http://www.wamu.org/programs/schedule/preview/) and it looks like Hot Jazz Saturday Night will stay.

I'm sad to see the bluegrass go, but I would be even sadder if Hot Jazz went too.

Naturally, anything cultural or quirky gets expunged from DC eventually.

Honest to god, I hope Dianne Rheim just goes ahead and fucking dies already. I know I'm supposed to be all "aawwwww, they kept her on after she lost all fucking use of her voice" but to hell with it. I don't prefer wheelchair basketball to the NBA just becuase they're trying. Sometimes I want something to objectively not suck.

I know, the usual response is "but she asks such good queeeessiooooonsssss..." Bullshit. She's considerably worse interview than Terry Gross. And even if she was such hot shit, that's what the position of producer is for.

If I ever hear her on my previously blissful bluegrass weekends, WAMU can shove my donations up their fucking ass.

I am GRATEFUL that I won't have to wake up every Sunday morning listening to another twangy bluegrass version of Amazing Grace.

I never understood why programmers think that NPR listeners just want to hear Bluegrass, Jazz or Classical music. I completely agree with westofrome - AAA needs a radio station in DC and would have a much larger audience than Bluegrass, Jazz or Classical.

It also always amazes me that NPR is completely at a loss for how to attract younger listeners, fresh voices, more money. Seriously? Try adding AAA music to your daily schedule. KCRW in LA has the right idea. Take some tips from their music programming. They have the largest Public Radio Market in the country AND they know what to do with it.

just moved here and was looking forward to listening to one of the very few bluegrass resources in the area. welcome to dc.

Compared to the execrable genre that is "hot country," I'll take bluegrass' authentic toothless inbred banjo twang and gutbucket boogie any day.

At least they're not singing about their pickup truck or kicking Saddam's ass.

To the guest who hates Diane Rehm so much, we readers of this article prefer comments from people who understand English grammar and know how to spell properly. Oh, and commenting to the topic at hand wouldn't hurt, either. I guess we are picky, too.

I'm surprised so many folks are surprised by the latest programming moves at WAMU.

They've been moving away from LOCALLY-PRODUCED, LIVE, UNIQUE music programming for several years now, using Internet-only feeds and now HD-radio as a supposed "separate-but-equal" dumping ground while more lucrative-audience network chat stuff goes up on the big and easy signal.

Don't like what WAMU does? Stop giving them money and tell them to put UNIQUE programming (and that doesn't include repeats of Diane Rehm) on the big signal.

At least WETA-FM is back providing something different to the Washington airwaves.

this is a raw deal. Sunday bluegrass had become a tradition for me. now I'm lost when I'm cookin' up bacon and reading the paper. it hasn't been the same :~(

I'm not surprised by WAMU's pandering to the public affairs dorks, but I'm w/the grumpy bluegrass listeners on this 1. This reminds me of what happened w/WDCU when they replaced jazz w/godawful CSPAN. The last thing we need in this town is less music, particularly niche genres like bluegrass & jazz, & more boring political talk shows & "All Things Considered"-type crap on the airwaves.

And techne, what's w/the hating on Marian McPartland? For shame! Her show was 1 of the few that I bothered listening to in Chicago.

For a city whose population is supposedly so well educated and diverse, you'd think that we might find a broader variety of programming on the radio here, instead of the same old stale, dumbed-down crap that hasn't changed in years.

For every genius that thinks bluegrass is some dumb-ass niche music, the station is one of the top-5 online radio stations in the U.S.

An interesting story would be discovering who is demanding all of these changes. It's not the person supposedly in charge of the station, but maybe on the board of directors for the station? Maybe the university?

That's the way to destroy an audience WAMU.

As a hard-core bluegrass/old country music fan, I will sadly miss the programming on WAMU, but I knew it was doomed when Eddie Stubbs gave up his classic country music show...as far as the rest of the sniveling responses are concerned: Get a life! There must be more to life than spending a Sunday listening to Diane, Kojo, and All Things Considered. That is some of the most boring radio I have ever heard!...And reruns at that! And available on many other NPR outlets at the same time. The most entertaining show on NPR is Car Talk. I first started donating to WAMU in the 70's, and quit when the daily bluegrass and folk disappeared some years ago. Watch the donations plummet now!! Let's see if all of you hard-core liberals can keep WAMU on the air.

#52, I might prefer something like KEXP or even WFMU to more AAA-ish WTMD and its brethren, but it's still 100 times better than what else we have.

Guest 49 - even if the rating you're relying on is accurate, it doesn't mean that WAMU is meeting the listening needs of the local community who actually listen to the regular radio. I don't think I should be forced to listen to bluegrass just because people outside of the area like to listen to it online.

Since when can a radio station in the non-commercial band be "killed off by corporate greed?" Since when is donating to another university "corporate greed?"

And do you have documented proof that Caryn G. Mathes wanted to "destroy WAMU?" Can you quote her actually saying that or is this a lunatic conspiracy theory? Do you also believe that the black helicopters are following you?

And if you hate politics and our system of government so much, why the hell don't you get out of Washington and take your trailer park trash inbred Republican music with you? In case you haven't noticed, the majority of District-area citizens are people of color who are tired of hearing White European oppression on their radios.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WGTB:

The station became notorious in the late 1960s and 1970s for broadcasting anti-war and left-wing programming across a 60-mile radius, covering the DC Metro area. The programming caused significant friction between the station's staff and the school administration. As a result, Fr. Timothy Healy, SJ, Georgetown's president, donated the 6700-watt signal, broadcasting at 90.1 FM, to the recently-founded University of the District of Columbia in 1979. UDC sold the signal to C-SPAN in 1997 for $25 million.

--------------

Georgetown didn't sell the station to UDC--it *donated* it, moron. UDC sold the station to C-SPAN. And the radicals weren't the license-holders the *university* was, meaning it has the right to do with the signal what it wants. If the students owned the station, it would've been a different story, aging hippie. That windowpane really fucked you up back in '77, huh?

And if you can't tell the different between NPR and WMAL, you must really be either an acid casualty or an inbred moron.

Oh--are they going to have terbaccy-spitting contests and a dunk the cullud booth at those inbred festivals?

And is the KKK going to have cross-burnings and lynchings, too?

Bluegrass Music: The Roots

The various types of music brought with the people who began migrating to America in the early 1600s are considered to be the roots of bluegrass music---including dance music and ballads from Ireland, Scotland and England, as well as African American gospel music and blues. (In fact, slaves from Africa brought the design idea for the banjo--an instrument now integral to the bluegrass sound.)

As the early Jamestown settlers began to spread out into the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and the Virginias, they composed new songs about day-to-day life experiences in the new land. Since most of these people lived in rural areas, the songs reflected life on the farm or in the hills and this type of music was called "mountain music" or "country music." The invention of the phonograph and the onset of the radio in the early 1900s brought this old-time music out of the rural Southern mountains to people all over the United States.

Bluegrass music is now performed and enjoyed around the world. In addition to the classic style born in 1945 that is still performed widely, bluegrass bands today reflect influences from a variety of sources including traditional and fusion jazz, contemporary country music, Celtic music, rock & roll ("newgrass" or progressive bluegrass), old--time music and Southern gospel music--in addition to lyrics translated to various languages.

http://www.ibma.org/about.bluegrass/history/index.asp

WAMU has broadcasted Bluegrass since 1967 - 6 years after the start of that small educational station. Bluegrass has continued consistently in varying amounts for 40 years. Their own site has promoted this for years. - http://wamu.org/about/history
You may be thinking of 90.1 WGTB’s progressive rock in the late 70’s before it was killed off by corporate greed.
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wrong. I checked the site and by 1977 they say Bluegrass expanded to 20.5 hours a week or roughly 3 hours a day. The rest of the day was other music and talk. By their own timeline Bluegrass didn't take off until 1983. That is exactly how I remember it, It was on in the car one day in high school and it was like country music where before it was hippy folk and jazz.

I remember listening to Dr Progresso's Progressive Rock show on WAMU in the very late 1970s.

I had a teacher who listened to traditional folk music on WAMU and was on a show talking about the dulcimers she built. She was no country musician, we're talking British-style ballad folk. That's the content I remember as a kid.

If anyone who's older than 40 wants to chime in, I'm all ears. I really remember Bluegrass becoming the norm for WAMU around 1983ish.

"Latino" or "Spanish-language programming," racist.

What's your opinion of African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, women, gays and lesbians?--as if we didn't already know.

Funny how aging hippies turn into Republicans--oh, I forgot: "The only position for women in the Movement is prone."

Ah,

"We’ve got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we’ve got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can’t even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, “Stay the course.” Stay the course? You’ve got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic.
Well at least someone in the herd has awakened to see our mainstream mass moving relentlessly toward the cliff."

Question is, why did Lemm Iacocca open his Lemming eyes so late in the game? When did the beam of enlightenment dawn on him that The Market was not providing "us" with the best and the brightest for steering our Titanic away from the Iceberg?

And what of the irony? Is he not, was he not, one of the Ring Masters in the Three Ring Circus of Corporate America: GM-Ford-Chrysler?

Lemm Iacocca is of the born-again belief that there is a steering house on our Ship and that someone lives in the steering house; the someone being those he calls the "clueless bozos steering our Ship of State".

The sad fact is, Mr. Iacocca, there is no one home in the steering house. The machine, the ship, steers itself. It's sort of like a herd of wild steer charging maddingly up the ramp to the slaughter house. Each one of us bullies the one in front to "move forward" lest we all fall behind and become one of the left behinds. It is a blind fear. A primitive fear that drives us forward toward some expected Shining City on the Hill. We are not yet bright enough to understand that the light at the end of the tunnel is a locomotive. We have been trained throughout life to believe that charging forward is "progress". Bully for us. (Or should the old saw instead be: "Bullheaded Bulls are Us"?)

But why bother now to take a retiree's pause, to perchance stop in your bull's charge forward, to step back from the ledge, and to take a sweeping look around you Mr. Iacocca? Don't you know time is a wasting? There are so many things that need to be hurriedly "accomplished". So little time.

We each have our own vial of vital vitamin C's: There are Calves to be birthed and herded through College There are Careers that must be built and nurtured in a Constantly Competitive environment. There are fancy Cars that must be bought. There are Consumptionest Estates of Real that must be accumulated and manicured. There are Commies and Crazed Islamists to be gored in our bull's rage "over there" before they do the same to us "over here". There are Corporate Chiefs to be clothed in gilded parachutes and covered with Cradle to Course (Golf Course) Pensions. We have so much to do. Why stop to stare about and waste time?

Lemm Cocca of course continues to believe in The Machine and its main control point: The Steering Wheel. He insists that it is merely a matter of finding the correct "Leadership" to install in key spots. Just implant one smart leader here and another there. Then by magic, the cliffward charge of our mad herd of bulls will veer toward the more correct direction "forward". Here is another excerpt from Lemm Cocca's rage against the cliff (Where Have All the Leaders Gone?):

But when you look around, you’ve got to ask: “Where have all the leaders gone?” Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point.
[Stepback insert: You get The Bull's horn. You get the old "you've got to, you've got to". Don't dare step back and ask Why "you've got to"? Bullies know how to bully the herd forward.]
... Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when “the Big Three” referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen —and more important, what are we going to do about it?
Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.
Come now Lemm Coccoa. Not one bray from you about "Peak Oil"? Not one bleat bout "Global Warming"? Not one grunt against "Over Population"? Not one nuanced notion that perhaps the whole corporate mentality and consumerist creed might be corraling us toward our own doom? Lay it all down on "Leadership"? Simple as that

Have you perhaps considered the fact that the majority of the classical music audience as it presently exists does not want to hear long, boring pieces, screaming sopranos or weirdo avant-garde music?

You ultrapurists have to accept the fact that the classical music audience is drying up because of age and what remains mostly consists of people who want nothing more than high-class background music.

And you also have to accept the fact that this is not 1977, WAMU is not primarily funded by the American University and WETA is not primarily funded by government sources. Public radio simply cannot afford to program to a million micro-niches anymore. It must be run as a business. And WETA has to program what the consensus of people who listen to classical music in 2007 want to hear. And WAMU has to provide what is both the most important service and one that has become what the consensus of its supporters want--quality, objective news and public affairs as an alternative to the far-right-wing nutsos of most commercial talk radio and the far-left-wing conspiracy theorist nutsos at Air America and Pacifica. What is wrong with an objective, centrist news service?

As you read this letter, you may feel confused at points. If you do, keep reading. The rationale underlying WAMU's ideals is confusing. Fortunately, as you read the superfluity of examples about how WAMU has been trying to formulate social policies and action programs based on the most unprofessional sorts of hedonism in existence, this letter will slowly begin to make sense. Here's the story: We must improve the living conditions of the most vulnerable in our society -- the sick, the old, the disabled, the unemployed, and our youth -- all of whose lives are made miserable by WAMU. If we don't, future generations will not know freedom. Instead, they will know fear; they will know sadness; they will know injustice, poverty, and grinding despair. Most of all, they will realize, albeit far too late, that WAMU has delivered exactly the opposite of what it had previously promised us. Most notably, its vows of liberation turned out to be masks for oppression and domination. And, almost as troubling, WAMU's vows of equality did little more than convince people that there's a time to keep silent and a time to speak. There's a time to love and a time to hate. There's a time for war and a time for peace. And, I feel, there's a time to get WAMU off our backs. Or, to put it less poetically, WAMU's virtue and brains are inversely proportionate to its vices and the size of its mouth. The mere mention of that fact guarantees that this letter will never get published in any mass-circulation periodical that WAMU has any control over. But that's inconsequential, because there is one crucial fact that we must not overlook if we are to perceive our current situation as it is, rather than in the anamorphosis of some "ideology" such as clericalism or Trotskyism. Specifically, as long as the beer keeps flowing and the paychecks keep coming, WAMU's understrappers don't really care that I am not a robot. I am a thinking, feeling, human being. As such, I get teary-eyed whenever I see WAMU work hand-in-glove with the most disreputable nitwits I've ever seen. It makes me want to keep our courage up, which is why I'm so eager to tell you that if one dares to criticize even a single tenet of WAMU's asseverations, one is promptly condemned as intrusive, hectoring, raucous, or whatever epithet WAMU deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation.

WAMU uses the word "auriculoventricular" without ever having taken the time to look it up in the dictionary. Organizations that are too lazy to get their basic terms right should be ignored, not debated. Who could have guessed that WAMU would lead people towards iniquity and sin? To put it another way, how can it be so selfish? I'll tell you the answer in a moment. But first, let me just say that all it really wants is to hang onto the perks it's getting from the system. That's all it really cares about. Whereas WAMU claims that we can change the truth if we don't like it the way it is, I claim that only through education can individuals gain the independent tools they need to shine a light on its efforts to sensationalize all of the issues. But the first step is to acknowledge that the first lies that WAMU told us were relatively benign. Still, they have been progressing. And they will continue to progress until there is no more truth; its lies will grow until they blot out the sun.

I want to make this clear, so that those who do not understand deeper messages embedded within sarcastic irony -- and you know who I'm referring to -- can process my point. Nature is a wonderful teacher. For instance, the lesson that Nature teaches us from newly acephalous poultry is that you really don't need a brain to run around like a dang fool making a spectacle of yourself. Nature also teaches us that WAMU struts like a god on Mount Olympus, looking down on us mortals below. Nevertheless, I can state with absolute certainty that WAMU's statements have kept us separated for too long from the love, contributions, and challenges of our brothers and sisters in this wonderful adventure we share together -- life! Perhaps WAMU received its information (or rather, misinformation) from late-night television programs and "B" movies. Summa summarum, WAMU is proposing a cure for which there is no disease or, more likely, a disease for which there is no cure.

This thread is getting wacky.

As for wi-fi radio, sure, I could get any internet radio with wi-fi radio. I sure wouldn't be listening to WTMD. The trouble is reliable reception in the car without paying a hefty monthly data fee.

NPR is just another leftist liberal rag.
---

let me know what newsstand sells that rag.

But they seem pretty much on point...

It's called a tampon dispenser in a public toilet.
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and that's where you last bought NPR to read?

And that's why WAMU took the Hee Haw music off. Wingnut morons are not public radio listeners. Go listen to WMAL, trailer park trash wingnut moron.

Oh yes, wingnut: We already know from what you said about Diane Rehm that you're a sexist pig. What's your opinion of African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, gays and lesbians--as if we didn't already know?