Who's watching Lawrence Welk?

In this week's "Ask the Elders" column in The Concord (N.H.) Insider, "Amanda" writes in: "Dear Elders, Do you REALLY donate to public TV when they play Lawrence Welk during the fund drive?" The five responses include: "You bet I do. I love the champagne sounds of the old master and his flock of singers and players...The innocence of the mid-'50s TV was pure joy"; "Not only do these stations think we actually enjoy the programs they present during these fund drives, they make us suffer and listen to beg-a-thons every two weeks it seems"; and, directed at Amanda, "All of your music seems to be just loud and emotional, noisy, deafening."

Mark Ramsey's keynote address to pubradio programmers, plus reactions

Listen to audio of radio consultant Mark Ramsey's Sept. 20 keynote address at the Public Radio Programming conference here and read reactions from Louisville Public Media's Todd Mundt and The Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn. On his own blog yesterday, Ramsey offered this MediaPost piece on the future of radio as recommended reading.

Bumps in the road from radio to multimedia

NPR's push into reinvent itself as a multimedia news organization, and the challenges of retraining its journalists and renegotiating its relationships with member stations, are examined in this in-depth feature to be published in the next edition of American Journalism Review and this Associated Press story. The AJR piece looks closely at the Knight Foundation digital media training program that's being offered to NPR's entire editorial staff, and it reveals some misgivings about the new demands being placed on NPR journalists. "The Knight training stuff, it just feels like running away from my job," says All Things Considered producer Art Silverman. "Most people feel as if the radio show must come first, and I'm only being half a producer if I spend half the time dragging a camera around. The upper management is pushing for multimedia, but the middle management people have a radio show to do."

Dylan unveils "Tell Tale Signs" on NPR Music

NPR Music is offering an exclusive stream of Bob Dylan's forthcoming release Tell Tale Signs. The 2-CD set, previewed in advance of its official release on Oct. 7, is the 8th installment of Dylan's Bootleg Series. It features alternate versions of songs recorded during sessions for Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, as well as Dylan's take on "32-30 Blues" by Robert Johnson. Dylan fans who joined NPR Community, the brand-new social network, began posting comments late last night, 30 minutes before the stream went live.