The Well-Tempered Ear

What do you think of the ‘new’ Wisconsin Public Radio?

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By Jacob Stockinger

Is The Ear alone — the only listener who is apprehensive and even disapproving about the major changes coming to the “new” Wisconsin Public Radio?

Starting this coming Monday, May 20, WPR is about to be severely reinvented.

That is when there will really be two WPRs — an all-music channel and a separate all-news channel — and when schedules for programs and hosts will change drastically.

And, just as importantly, so will the locations the two new stations on the dial.

For more details about the new station maps and numbers as well as background to the Big Makeover, go to the newly redesigned and improved website and especially this page:

Switching stations several times each day to catch the programs that you like should be about as much fun as resetting your clocks and digital timers for going on and off Daylight Saving and after a power outage.

Only you will be doing it non-stop.

No more one-stop shopping from morning to night.

Might just be enough to make some people tune out. 

Or maybe withhold donations, even with what seems an increasing reliance on matching gifts by “generous friends” of WPR.

Of course the promotions and YouTube video from WPR’s recently hired director Sarah Ashworth (below) say the changes will be “exciting” and come after two years of research and analysis. She says the changes will make it easier for listeners around the state to listen to WPR, but they sure sound inconvenient more than user-friendly.

Excuse my doubt.

I like the mix of news and classical music. Always have, alway will.

I like waking up to NPR’s “Morning Edition,” which is my comprehensive morning news briefing. It’s great to listen to while driving to work or resting in bed.

I love the transition to classical music at 9, when I need beauty and am ready to listen to some music. (Below is Stephanie Elkins in the studio where she masterfully hosted the now-defunct “Morning Classics.”)

And after six hours of music, I love hearing “All Things Considered,” one of the few broadcast news programs that take culture seriously in addition to politics, finance and world events. I also love catching Terry Gross’ interviews on “Fresh Air” and financial updates from “Marketplace.” 

I have loved the news-music contrast and combination ever since I came to graduate school in Madison and first tuned in to WPR.

The station has always reinforced the astute observations made by the great American poet William Carlos Williams who said: ‘“Beauty” is related not to “loveliness” but to a state in which reality plays a part”’ and  “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/though men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there.”

Beauty and news belong together — integrated, not segregated. (The all-music channel will still have hourly headlines.)

Hard to tell if the changes will take WPR, now over a century old, to greater success or put it on the path to slow suicide.

Other things might have helped increase listenership .

One that comes to mind is playing less second- and third-rate music that is thoroughly boring and forgettable, and then trying to pass it off as important. More of an emphasis on great music — you know, the kind that first made us all fall in love with classical music — and less of an emphasis on obscure musicology and identity programming might have helped.

Another is implementing faster solutions to mechanical problems — including missing online listings, frequent instances of dead air, and chopping off parts of news and music programs.

Anyway, we need to give the new changes a chance. So Monday I will tune in and see how it goes and hope for the best before passing final judgment. But I am not optimistic.

What do you think of the changes?

What would you like to see WPR do more of or less of?

Please leave a comment, however brief.

The Ear and surely the entire staff at WPR want to hear.