Do we dream? Or do we imagine? Two acts not so different. When I dream about the "Future of Radio" it's quite different than what I imagine for the future.

    Take 1: From the top... I'm not a reporter filing pieces for one of the many programs that fall under the Public Radio Umbrella (PRU). For those of you who do work for PRU, I think the system must be working quite well, thank you very much. OK, the pay compared to the big guys sucks (is this where I go to the bar join the side discussion on how to instigate the next revolution in Public radio?*(1)) Still a hundred bucks a minute isn't bad, so long as there are enough vehicle minutes.

    Vehicles? Radio Producer - The filler of vehicles.

    It was more fun in the SPDF days. It sounded more fun. Now the radio sounds like we've all grown up and become respected professionals. So if we're not having as much fun, we should be paid better (that discussion's at that the other table by the bar, this table's for the revolution*(2)).

    The Future of Radio: Three questions. Is "short form" a cultural thing? Or is it a money thing? What is the future of my small radio world when number counters can say that neither Drama nor documentary, with their minuscule audience and tremendous costs, are worthy of being a part of our culture? Time has been further quantified and we can assign different dollar values to different minutes in the day. Soon we'll have no culture of drama on the radio and no culture of documentary radio. Certainly we have the fine works of Messieurs Glass and Isay. Certainly we've had talented producers in the past. I keep those tapes in "Tupperware" containers. But by now we have very little of culture of listening to drama or documentary. Without a culture, memory dies. All talk - lots of news and classical music... An auditors solution to public radio programing now and in the future.

    New Media or old? I'm not much of an internet guy. Nothing against it at all, it's just that it's, well, it's only a machine. Isn't it? Or is it really, as some would have it, the next step in human evolution? I lived during a tender formative year in Missouri. The"show me" virus was intense and this was long before the peabody awarded swine flu. So when it's all working, cool I'll give it a spin. But even then it's just a machine... Maybe as a broadcaster I find it hard to get excited about using new media when we haven't really learned how to use the old. It's clear there are advantages, but aren't these mostly about delivery or business?

    My radio dream... (spare me) OK then the short version... It's less national and less local -- more regional. Maybe 15, maximum 20 power house stations. (Sorry Jay. Different tables/different bar/later when we can move on to schnapps?*(3)) Funded through a special tax/license fee which is managed by non-government agencies. No more CPB. No more NPR. Each station produces there own news program. Radio drama is broadcast everyday - it's a significant part of the program. Writers would know radio as an outlet for there best and their quirkiest work - a resource. Documentaries and documentary features are on everyday. Longer programs, 30, 57, 96 minutes, that explore any theme -- politics, art, human tragedy, comedy... everyday life. Dramas and documentaries with voices, languages, styles that span the cultures and colors of society. Call it a national radio plan to revive a culture of listening. And that's the bottom line. Without a culture of listening there's no memory and without a memory...

    New media or old... broadcasting or streaming... * three discussions:

    1). (is this where I go to the bar join the side discussion on how to instigate the next revolution in Public radio?) Who made the rules about what public radio is and what it should sound like? Are we following the rules? Are they the right rules? If not, what are we doing to change them? I suggested in a PAG posting that a discussion topic for this AIR On-line meeting might be: "NPR - Culture Czars? " No one seemed interested.

    2). (that discussion's at that the other table by the bar, this table is for the revolution.) This is the one about the guys at the top and inside getting paid so much and while we get paid so little.

    3). (Sorry Jay. Different tables/different bar/later when we can move on to schnapps?) We also need to look at how the government raises and allocates money. There are many models but I'd suggest that the current one, where a big part of the CPB pie is divided between 300 or 400 stations, is not in the interest of independent producers or listeners. It is in the interest of some 1500-2000 managers who depend on the CPB for a salary so that they can play NPR and Classical music on there community/public radio station.

    6 suggestions for inspiration...
Listen to the archives.
Listen to each other...
Listen to Peter Leonhard Braun's "Bells in Europe" (Glocken in Europa) soon to be released on CD by a German audio publisher.
Listen to Glenn Gould and John Coltrane.
Listen to Harri Huhtamaki. Hi Harri.