Garrison Keillor's Ironman Streak To End At "Prairie Home Companion"

[DToTheJ]

Keillor, who has hosted the NPR program since 1974, will step aside next week so that a female fiddler can have a shot at the show:
http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/blogs/113036069.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUncacyi8cyaiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUHDYaGEP7eyckcUs

[MattParker]

This is the second time he has "stepped down."

The article says she will host the show one time.  No promises after that.

Maybe he's not going away but like Johnny Carson (among others) he wants to be able to take time off, do other things or maybe just work less.  A regular guest host (like Leno was and Joan Rivers before that), or maybe a stable of occasional guest hosts, gives him an option other than repeat broadcasts.

He will still do the News From Lake Wobegon on that show.  So maybe one possibility will be he wants to change his role in the show, while the show remains his show.

Besides, the fiddler is very hot.

[TheBigA]

Sorry to be a pest, but PHC is not an NPR show.  Never has been. 

[aaronread]

THANK YOU TheBigA.  Yes, APHC is an American Public Media show, produced (as it always has) by Minnesota Public Radio.  Prior to MPR creating APM, they distributed it through Public Radio Int'l.  It was never distributed nor owned by NPR.

By the way, Keillor is 68 and had a stroke a little over a year ago.  Producing a live weekly show in front of an audience is stressful as hell (having produced several one-shot live audience shows I don't know how he does it every week) and I don't blame him for starting to think about slowing down a little and also about perhaps who's going to take over when he can't do it anymore.  And I do mean it that way: Garrison might slow down a little, but he won't completely leave the stage any way but feet-first.   

[MattParker]

THANK YOU TheBigA.  Yes, APHC is an American Public Media show, produced (as it always has) by Minnesota Public Radio.  Prior to MPR creating APM, they distributed it through Public Radio Int'l.  It was never distributed nor owned by NPR.

It does get a little incestuous, however.  Minnesota Public Radio's A-Rep currently holds a seat on the NPR board.  In most types of business, it would be considered a conflict of interest to put a competitor on the board. 

[Talk_Dude]

THANK YOU TheBigA.  Yes, APHC is an American Public Media show, produced (as it always has) by Minnesota Public Radio.  Prior to MPR creating APM, they distributed it through Public Radio Int'l.  It was never distributed nor owned by NPR.

It does get a little incestuous, however.  Minnesota Public Radio's A-Rep currently holds a seat on the NPR board.  In most types of business, it would be considered a conflict of interest to put a competitor on the board. 

They aren't really competitors. The various acronymed players in the world of public radio are just different heads of the same Hydra. All of public radio is colloquially (though technically incorrectly) referred as "NPR", just as all adhesive bandages are called "Band-Aids" and all facial tissues are called "Kleenex". Technically, using the leading brand name to describe all products in a category is an error. But only a pedantic nit-picker or someone who works for the brand name and wants to protect it would make a big deal out of it.

[MattParker]

They aren't really competitors. The various acronymed players in the world of public radio are just different heads of the same Hydra. All of public radio is colloquially (though technically incorrectly) referred as "NPR", just as all adhesive bandages are called "Band-Aids" and all facial tissues are called "Kleenex". Technically, using the leading brand name to describe all products in a category is an error. But only a pedantic nit-picker or someone who works for the brand name and wants to protect it would make a big deal out of it.

Really? 
I suppose Premiere, TRN, Salem and Citadel are also heads of the wing-nut echo chamber hydra?
And how about all those liberals who still call progressive talk radio "Air America," despite the fact that they are out of business, and even when they were in business the leading progressive talk shows never came from AAR. 
Maybe you are one of those people who asks for a Coke and can't tell if they give you Pepsi.
Maybe talk radio has made you sloppy, imprecise and careless in your use of words and given you a disregard for the accuracy or inaccuracy of anything you cite as fact, and leads you to call anyone who does care about these things a "pedantic nit-picker." 
The fact is the major public radio program suppliers compete for air time and clearances, and there are not enough of either to go around.  Sometimes the competition gets ruthless - as when NPR moved the start of All Things Considered for the purpose of driving APR's Monitor Radio off the air. 
I realize right-wingers like to think that anything they consider "liberal" is orchestrated by (1) the Kremlin from 1945 to 1990 and (2) by George Soros since then.  In your paranoia you give liberals way too much credit for organization.

I don't belong to any organized political party.  I'm a Democrat.

[TheBigA]

In most types of business, it would be considered a conflict of interest to put a competitor on the board. 

The actual competitor would be American Public Media.  In point of fact, Minnesota Public Radio is an affiliate of NPR, a powerful one, and carries NPR programming.  And the fact that the parent of APM carries programming from a competitor isn't unusual in commercial circles.  Numerous CBS-owned radio stations carry programs from Clear Clannel-owned Premiere, and Clear Channel stations carry programs from Citadel-owned ABC Radio.  Citadel's CEO sat on the Board of Westwood One when it was managed by CBS.   

But back to public radio, the way the overall public radio system was reconfigured in 1983, the stations (including MPR) basically have an ownership stake in NPR and are responsible for its financial stability.  The NPR interconnection system is in fact owned by the stations, not NPR, and has always been run as an open system, where all stations can act as networks and distribute their own network programming.  In a way, the NPR interconnect was run like the internet long before there was such a thing. 

[MattParker]

@BigA: A card carrying pedantic nit-picker, I should point out NPR has "member stations" - not affiliates.  Member stations are, as you say, the stock holders in NPR and elect its governing board.  Affiliates have an agreement to carry network programs under agreed-on financial terms.

CBS O&Os may carry programs from Premiere but don't expect to see Lowry, Mark or Randall Mays on the CBS board any time soon.

The main point, I think you'd agree, is public radio is not a monolith with three active distributors and several additional program producers - all competing with each other in a free market.

[TheBigA]

The main point, I think you'd agree, is public radio is not a monolith with three active distributors and several additional program producers - all competing with each other in a free market.

Well, my view is that NPR itself isn't the powerful monolith some people think it is.  It's part of a public radio programming resource system, all aimed at providing content for stations and ultimately the public.  While some view it as "competition," others see it as co-operation.  There's a lot of interplay among the various entities.  We're talking about non-profits here, and there isn't much point to competing when service, not profit, is the motivation.