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Pine no more, Braude and Eagan fans

WGBH says its hiring the former WTKK talkers to talk away between noon and and 2 p.m. on weekdays on its "Boston Public Radio" show. The move frees up Callie Crossley and Emily Rooney, who currently hold down the microphones then, to do other things, although the station says they'll continue to get some words in edgewise on the show. 'GBH adds that Edgar B. Herwick III will continue to contribute to the show after the changeover on Feb. 25.

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Comments

Why is GBH recycling these folks? We all can already hear Braude on his five-night-a-week show on NECN and can read Marjorie in the Herald.

Audiences deserve more perspectives, not repeats of the same ones already out there. And public radio should be the ones to bring us those voices.

I really like the 12-2 slot on GBH but will listen less when the switch happens and will especially miss Callie. Her segments are unique and valuable.

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The Boston Herald's website has already posted the story, and as usual, the comments from the readers are largely devoid of facts. Over and over, they say "WGBH, no advertisers, no listeners" or the "listenership will go from 11 to 7" etc. I have a password to All Access Media's website that displays Arbitron ratings including the cumulative audience number. For Boston, the station draws about 300,00 listeners, plus a sizable listenership in Providence. All Access doesn't dispay cumes for Manchester/Nashua/ Concord, NH or Worcester, but WGBH-FM has listeners there too. It has a "grandfathered" 98,000-watt transmitting facility on Great Blue Hill (hence the call-letters) which is four-times the power that a full-power commercial station could be authorized at that height (650 feet above-average-terrain; a commercial outlet would be limited to 25,000 watts)and using the inverse-square rule of FM propagation, that amounts to twice the signal strength if it weren't "grandfathered". And several low-information Herald readers sometimes call broadcast public radio stations NPR, but NPR is a network and DOESN'T OWN ANY STATIONS. In addition, NPR isn't the ONLY public radio network; there's American Public Radio", which distributes "Marketplace" and "Prairie Home Companion", among others. The derogatory appellation "government radio" is a tricky proposition. Federal and State funding of public broadcasting is a bit difficult to pin down, but is the source of far less than half of such funding for radio and TV, with the possible exception of facilities in rural areas.

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We get it, tell them, not us. I don't read the Herald nor look at their website.

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At last count, the Herald's website had almost 70 comments on the story. Most people who read comments won't go that far down. I love those Huffington Post entries with 11,000 comments!

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It's called protecting their own regardless of what media consumers actual want.

The media is one big club for like minded blowhards. This is why there is so little diversity in coverage and such outrage when one reporter or network doesn't swim with the rest of the school. It is also why disgraced plagiarists like Barnacle can keep a job and people with no brains, let alone ratings, can keep getting bounced from network to network as 'talent'.

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Audiences deserve more perspectives, not repeats of the same ones already out there. And public radio should be the ones to bring us those voices.

In other words, you want public radio to support your particular prejudices. For public radio in Boston, Braude and Eagan are 'more perspectives,' which is the last thing you really want.

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After listening to them bray for years, I have to say that I think Braude and Eagan have quite similar perspectives to Emily Rooney, whose spot they'll be sliding into - ie, typical white baby-boomer upper-middle-class Bostonians - moderately liberal (if it doesn't cost them much), a bit over-entitled, a bit slack on the math and science comprehension, out of touch with pop culture since 1989, and a little too fond of name-dropping and not-so-clever puns.

I would have liked to see WGBH give Kara Miller an regular everyday slot. She's smart, connected, tech savvy, and appreciates that she doesn't know everything already.

Or if cheeky repartee is that vitally important to Wgbh, I'd rather see them find someone who'd be willing to tweek all noses - including establishment ones - with a slightly more pointy stick than those old dogs.

Hmmm...Hey Suldog and Adam, what are you guys doing everyday at noon? Now that's a show I'd tune into!

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"I would have liked to see WGBH give Kara Miller an regular everyday slot. She's smart, connected, tech savvy, and appreciates that she doesn't know everything already."

You lost me at "smart". Kara Miller is nothing more than a low rent local version of Ezra Klein. Both only employed as the youngish face parroting the correct talking points approved by senior management.

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Who were Edgar B. Herwick I ?... and Edgar B. Herwick II ?...

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But I'll go out on a limb and hazard that Edgar B. Herwick I was his grandfather, and II was his father.

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