CHANGES

June 27, 2020. 

My primary sources for news are the internet and our local public radio station. I often listen to the radio for an hour or two after I get into bed. But instead of looking forward to some of my favorite programs, I scramble to adjust to a new reality.

The station has been working hard to keep up with all the changes since the onset of Covid-19. There are presidential press conferences, and daily briefings from our governor. There are national and local specials that summarize the present situation or answer questions that have come up. These are the kinds of events that public radio is committed to broadcasting (even if they do become repetitive and boring.) These programs pre-empt the regular scheduling. I listen to some of them.

The regular schedule has changed, too. Before Covid-19, that 8pm hour was usually devoted to a recorded and edited broadcast of a lecture or conversation that had been presented to a live audience in the previous weeks: The Commonweath Club, City Arts and Lectures, World Affairs Council, Climmate One. Those programs featured well-known experts, commentators, and artists, often interviewed by skilled and knowledgable broadcasters and they covered subjects of current interest. Now there are no presentations with live audiences, and there hasn't been the opportunity for much advance planning. So programs are quickly cobbled together with long-distance interviews, segments from past programs, and commentary. They're usually OK, but sometimes it's clear that the speakers have not had much time to prepare and may have been selected simply because they're available.

Our local PBS station subscribes to a certain amount of BBC programming that sometimes comes on at unexpected times. Some locally produced programs are repeated to fill in when there's an random gap. The station is doing a good job under the circumstances, and one positive change is an up-dated website that keeps listeners informed about schedule changes. But I still miss the old, predictable format.

Since we haven't had a television set for over 25 years, I don't have first-hand experience about what's now available on the networks and chanels. I get the feeling that new programmng has been seriously limited by the pandemic. So people are bingeing on favorite oldies. It's comforting in these confusing and uncertain times to sink for an hour or two into the familiar past.