A Final Word on NPR Pledge Drives

No, they didn't get any of my money. Each time I'd tune in during the pledge drive for desperately needed money to "balance the budget", it would be 5 minutes left in the current challenge segment. "We still need $6,000 dollars in the next 5 minutes in order to meet our goal of $10,000 for this hour." The phones would not be ringing in the background. The hour would end, with no mention of what the total raised was. No way could they have made that $10,000 goal. Another listen, and again they'd be short by thousands with 2 minutes left. So I speculated "Good. They won't "balance the budget" and maybe they'll come up with a better way to get their money." But at the end of the whole pledge drive ( which by the way seemed pretty morally conflicted as they kept going while the ravages of Hurricane K were constantly in the news ) there was the inevitable message "Thank you for your generous pledges, which enabled us to exceed our goal and balance the budget." Yeah, sure. I figure they were lying all along about how much was needed from the lowly listeners (as opposed to how much they knew could be kicked in by corporations and charitable trusts). At any rate, it's over for now. I had saved my money which I then was able to contribute to New Orleans hurricane relief. I know - they are a public station with no real commercials, and they have a right to raise funds via pledge drives, but it's still annoying. Just wait until I get going on the non-public, commercial "fine arts" radio station in this area that also runs long obnoxious pledge drives as though they too need "listener support" to survive in addition to all the commercials they play.