So Typical

Hello to everyone at Metro Pulse from a homesick Knoxvillian in Atlanta! I drive home almost every Friday night to spend the weekend with my lady friend, and I always know I'm back in civilization when I can pick up Live at Laurel or Music of the Southern Mountains on the radio.

Can it really be true that WUOT proposes to drop these programs? ["Dead Air" by Joe Tarr, Vol. 9., No. 4] I find it very hard to believe. It can't be cost-cutting—Craig Walker and Paul Campbell are volunteers. It can't be the competition—Spindale is not quite the same thing, and it doesn't have the same broadcast area locally. It can't be lack of an audience—mountain music is respected around the world, and it's having a nationwide revival. And this longtime Jubilee volunteer can testify that concerts at the Laurel are more popular than ever, and not just with the same old crowd either—usually the new faces outnumber us old-timers.

Even more incredibly lame is that WUOT proposes to fill the slot with a re-broadcast of Prairie Home Companion, so we'd have to listen to it two nights in a row. [Actually, the PHC rerun is slated to run on Sunday afternoons.—Ed.] To those many faithful who don't watch TV and listen to WUOT all the time, this is pretty irksome. I'll bet Garrison Keillor would be embarrassed to know he's displacing local volunteers.

Forgive my paranoid muttering, but this sounds like the kind of dumb greedy power play so typical of what is still under the surface of a scruffy little city. It resembles UT's cowardly destruction of neighborhood homes or the News-Sentinel's cheesy attempts to stamp out Metro Pulse.

I remember another stupid programming decision at WUOT—back in the '80s they tried to drop their jazz programming. Everybody raised hell, and the decision was quickly overthrown. I expect my fellow listeners to raise hell about this, too.

Joe Finucane
Atlanta

An Unwise Move

Thank you for reporting about WUOT's plans to scrap Live at Laurel and Music of the Southern Mountains. I have called and written WUOT and plan to be as assertive as possible until Mr. Berry comes to his senses. (By the way, Mr. Berry's work phone number is 974-5044.)

As a member of WUOT and a Yankee from the "generous listenership" that enjoys Prairie Home Companion, I must protest this unwise move. Anyone can set their stereo on a timer to catch a missed broadcast of any radio program. We don't need a second broadcast of PHC on Sunday. We need a University and its radio station to have a vision for all of the world's music and especially to support local music traditions.

I still miss the live broadcasts of Alive After Five on Fridays. Now to also be terminating these other locally-produced shows, I must reconsider my membership to our local public radio station. WUOT should be at the forefront of supporting this kind of diversity, not its enemy. If public radio won't do it, who will? Maybe next year we all should spend our public radio memberships on WNCW so they can buy a more powerful tower.

Karen Dhyanchand
Knoxville

Generally Uninspired

I have just read with dismay the article in Jan. 28 Metro Pulse about the cancellation of Music of the Southern Mountains and Live at Laurel. That, along with the cancellation of live broadcasts of Alive After Five, suggests to me that the management of WUOT needs to be replaced.

It is the function of a 100,000 watt public radio station to serve the public of its region with a variety of music, news, and information. A station such as WUOT has an obligation to preserve and promote live performances that represent the region. Thus, live classical musical performance should be included; however, replacing local programming with nationally syndicated programming should be eschewed. Although the "public interest" standard is vague, it is not difficult to understand that it has to do with providing a variety of regional culture beyond 19th century European music and opera.

WUOT's daytime programming, with the exception of news programming, is nothing more than easy listening music to be played in the background while working in the office. The programming is unexceptional, extremely redundant, and generally uninspired. Only a new program manager and general manager can save the station of abysmal boredom. Let's not change the programming, let's change the programmers. Let's create an exciting, informative station.

Bob Gwynne
Knoxville