As predicted, I didn't do too well raising money for KNON during their Winter Pledge Drive. I have explicitly told the Station Manager that I would gladly quit doing the show if he had someone who could raise more money than I do (or don't, as the case may be). I would not be offended. I am terrible at it.
& yet, as I drove home this morning, I wasn't all that depressed. I enjoyed chatting with Pippin & Carole on the air, & I enjoyed the show I put together. (I certainly liked it better than my first stab at the theme sixteen years ago!) We had some great premiums, but no one wanted them. One person said I was his favorite Blend deejay, which is always sweet to hear, but that's got to be a small number, & only a fraction of folks can pledge to radio stations. The fault, I am sure, is me. No salesperson I.
The wife, who's visiting her sisters & mother in California, talked to me suspiciously, like I was hiding my feelings, but really, it didn't bother me much. Should there be a shake-up & I lose the show, my show would barely be missed - I have seen dozens of "popular" shows disappear from the airwaves with great sadness only to have them virtually forgotten mere weeks later. This certainly happened with Self Help Radio in Austin, & it wasn't a well-loved show in any sense. The fellow who took over the timeslot has been doing it for far longer than I was ever there.
So I suppose I'm using perspective, or something, to rationalize my failure at this. I've been doing the show for a year now, people have a sense of what to expect when they turn the radio on on Tuesdays & tune into KNON. If things, premiums, tickets, shirts, etc., is what is needed to convince people to donate to a show, I fully understand why they might wait to do so when a show they really love is on - or a show where they know the deejay. I have very few friends in the Dallas area, & they don't listen to my show or to Self Help Radio for that matter. As for family, well, they've never been supportive of anything I do, so I wouldn't expect them to listen, let alone pledge. Even if they had some money to spare, that would be the last thing it would occur to them to do.
They always say when begging for money on the radio not to threaten - "this show won't be here if you don't pledge" - because it turns people off, but I think I would feel a strange satisfaction if that's the reason I lost the show. I don't know if anyone at KNON has lost his or her show in the recent past for that reason, but perhaps that's because I'm certainly the one who deserves that the most.
Do you know those super rich conservatives (it seems like they're mostly conservative) who give millions to political campaigns, etc., because they basically take a shit in their golden bathrooms & simultaneously make a million dollars from capital gains? If each one of them just picked a community radio station - there aren't that many in the US - & started a trust - just drop, say, fifty million dollars each - they wouldn't even notice it was gone - these stations wouldn't have to do pledge drives. Ever again.
That's something to aspire to. If you're a rich conservative - especially if you wasted money in the 2016 election on candidates who couldn't beat Trump - email me & we can chat. I know at least three stations that you can choose from - there are more - & it might be the only good thing you ever do with your money. & I'm not talking NPR stations! They're doing fine. Email me, we can talk. Wouldn't you love it if your legacy was ending pledge drives on KNON forever?
A boy can dream.
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