Currently Shrinking

Matt “Republicans Kill Babies” Snyders over at the City Pages covers a format shakeup at “89.3 The Current“, Bill Kling’s 401K Minnesota Public Radio’s attempt to lock in the 25-35 set.

It seems their ratings are off a quarter, and they’ve done what every flailing radio station does when the numbers head south; they’ve hired a consultant.

And The Consultant has put an end to free-form programming, and set the station up with The Playlist.

Well, whatever.  I mainly cite the piece to quote this line, about The Current’s token Brit, Mark Wheat.

[Wheat] turns his attention to a wide computer screen, finds his rhythm, and grabs the mic at precisely the right beat.

No, he probably does not.

Mark Wheat is just about the sloppiest , most dead-air-prone on-air presence this side of the Macalester college station; a verbal diarrheac who’d seem to be addicted to the percolating flow of his pointillistic knowledge of alt music, he rambles uncontrollably on the air.  Hearing his voice itself doesn’t make me turn away from The Current; that happens when his chattering about Tegan and Sara’s last gig at the Fine Line (or whatever) passes the two minute mark, and/or his name-dropping comes too fast to make out individual names.

Just saying.

4 thoughts on “Currently Shrinking

  1. Oh, he probably gets good ratings from all the people who did a study abroad in London and get a yen for Radio One.

    Seriously though, I read that MPR was going to lose the suit against the WCAL folks over the sale of the station. Not sure what the remedy would be, probably just money changing hands but it sure would be nice to see it go back to being a nice high fi classical radio station. It would be nice to see MPR get smacked upside the head for once too.

  2. Margaret:
    MPR is not involved in the suit you’re talking about. That suit is between Save WCAL and St. Olaf.

    The ratings thing is interesting and when the people meters begin measuring audience size, it’ll be interesting how things shake up.

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