Friday, August 24, 2012

Pledge pain

It's been an all-over-the-map week, what with Todd Akin's version of human reproductive science, Phyllis Diller passing and Prince Harry showing us he has nothing to hide in Vegas.

So I'll close it out by crabbing about KQED, the local public television station, which is having at least its third two-week pledge drive of the year. The last one (which actually lasted three weeks) was...last month.

They haul out the same tired, old war horses of [insert field of expertise here] [insert guru here] standing on a carpeted stage before a small studio audience, yakking about one topic or another that's supposed to make your skin look younger, fix your financial future, heal traumatic experiences and maybe make a concert pianist out of you.

Although if those talks didn't have the desired effects last month I don't know why they'd work this time.

There are also concerts of doo-wop, folk, big band and pre-pubescent singers.

The one common denominator is that every one of them is extended ten minutes in every half-hour with those bleeding pledge breaks.

I just wonder how successful they can be at raising money if they're hitting up their supporters on average every six weeks? Plus, the more time they devote to pledge drive, the less programming they actually have to pay for, so I wonder where all the dosh is going?

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