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Delmarva Public Radio Supporters Speak Out

Around 20 people spoke at a gathering of around 250 on the campus of Salisbury University last night pleading with the Salisbury University Foundation to save Delmarva Public Radio.

A 16 page consultant’s report recommends ending WSDL NPR News and Talk programming and converting it to a contemporary music station to appeal to a younger audience.

Dennis Hamilton with Public Radio Capital said this stood in contrast to the older audiences for classical music and news/talk.

"The average age of a triple a audience is about forty. Sixty-five here (classical music audience), fifty-five in the news audience...twenty to fifty in the music audience. Wouldn't that a more rational signals here?"

But Tom Hehman, former director of the Wicomico Public Library, compared this to a recommendation by the suicide doctor Dr. Kevorkian.

And, Mike Pretl with the group Friends of Delmarva Public Radio urged the Foundation Board to work with the community to find an alternative to the consultant’s recommendation.

"I think that those of us who care about these stations and who have listened to these stations and that have valued these stations, should have an opportunity to look beyond that scenario and to see whether there arer any other ways that can work. We will commend to you a series of measures recommended by the Friends of Delmava Public Radio to involve some local citizens in alternate scenarios."

Caruthers Hall that houses Delmarva Public Radio is set to be demolished next year making a decision on the station’s future more pressing.

Early in the last decade Delmarva Public Radio faced an effort to sell the stations outright.

But the Foundation Board decided against it at the time.

For more see Salisbury Daily Times.

  

Don Rush is the News Director at Delmarva Public Media. An award-winning journalist, Don reports major local issues of the day, from sea level rise, to urban development, to the changing demographics of Delmarva.