Your station struck me for high professionalism and cohesion of the team - Vitaly
Listener David wrote: “If the uninterrupted drives have been successful, why do you do these [Fall pledge drives]?” It’s a good question, and one that we have examined in depth. We’re been very pleased with the success of our summer “Stealth” drives. We think listeners appreciate the fact that over the years we have reduced the number of fundraising days from 26 down to 15. But the Summer drive is different from Fall or Spring in that the goal is so much lower — typically, less than half of the big ones. Still, it took three weeks of fairly intense messages, several per hour in the last few days, to reach those goals. We don’t think our listeners would be in favor of a Fall drive that took six weeks of messages, even if none disrupts regular programming.
And of course, it's always possible to end a drive early. We always say we will end the drive on the day we reach the goal, and we mean it. So if everyone would pledge in the early days rather than wait till the last minute, we’d be over that much sooner. Human nature being what it is, we haven’t seen that happen. But wouldn’t it be wonderful if it did? So please, help us out by returning your letter or pledging online at whqr.org. Our drive starts on October 12th.
Last week I reported on changes that NPR has made in the terminology used by our HQR News and Classical HQR live streams. Several listeners had reported problems, which so far seem to be being resolved. For example, Paula Jenkins of Wilmington wrote:
I heard that one of your listeners was having problems streaming with Sonos. So was I, but it seems to be working fine now. Whatever you did, thank you!
And listener Carolyn wrote:
[the] TuneIn [app] is working and I'm listening to WHQR right now. . . Thanks for working to fix this issue.
The thanks go to John McHarry, a retired engineer who assists us with various problems — he’s on top of this one, obviously.
We received a request this week from overseas. Listener Vitaly, from Korsun-Shevchenkivskyi in Ukraine, wrote as follows (and in the interest of clarity, I've tried to preserve something of the flavor, but have edited his sentence structure a bit):
Good afternoon, dear station staff. I am writing to you from a small Ukrainian town, with the hope of understanding. I want to say thank you for what you have. Of course, in our country, we can listen your radio station only via the Internet, which I do almost every day. You may ask why I do not listen to our national station - I would say that of course I listen to them, but I like your radio so that I can always see a wide variety of styles and themes focused on the target and on the different categories of people but the main thing is that all of the product, which is presented on your station has the highest quality. Listening to your station I perfect language skills, knowledge of the culture, customs and history of the country and the people. In general your station struck me for high professionalism and cohesion of the team that makes the product of the highest international quality. I think that after graduating from the Faculty of Journalism, I try to create something like this in our country. . . I wanted to ask you, if possible, to consider the opportunity to give me the materials with the logo of your channel, possibly a t-shirt, magnet, cup or other promotional materials. . . I understand that each day you receive many such requests and all the support you cannot, but I hope that you will support me and donate something to remember.
We sometimes receive messages from overseas (and from here, of course) which just don't feel quite right. This one feels OK to me, so we're sending Vitaly in Ukraine something with our best wishes and thanks.
We’d love to hear from you on Friday Feedback. You can always leave a message via email to feedback@WHQR.org. Our Feedback Phone is 910-292-9477. And thanks for your feedback.