[Dixielandjazz] OKOM in San Antonio

[Don Mopsick]

Ron Wheeler writes:

<<btw: Jim Cullum - "Live from the Riverwalk" can be heard on NPR every
Wednesday night.
 
-- snip --

That's partly true.  It's 'Riverwalk, Live from the Landing', and you can
get the show when and if your local NPR station decides to air it.  The
program is a production of Public Radio International, a competitor of NPR,
and my local NPR folks get right snooty when I suggest they should carry
Cullum and Co.  Strangely, they're happy as clams to carry Prairie Home
Companion, another PRI product.  Who knew there could be enough of a public
radio market for more than one entity to be fighting for their listenership?

I have to make do by listening to Riverwalk via the on-line streaming
program over the internet.>>

The official name of the series is "Riverwalk Jazz." Not sure exactly when
they changed it, I think maybe it was sometime around 1999 or so. 

It is true that we are carried by the Public Radio International network and
not National Public Radio. NPR was created and is still partially funded by
the US Congress. There is a central NPR building in Washington where they
produce a lot of their programming. On the other hand, PRI, based in
Minneapolis, is a much looser confederation of independent producers, of
which Pacific Vista Productions, producers of Riverwalk Jazz, are one. 

As far as the snooty attitude, I'd be willing to bet that the snoot-or is a
"jazz fan" whose religion is post-bop. When A Prairie Home Companion first
hit the airwaves, a lot of NPR folks had that same attitude, which could be
summarized as "who in the world could possibly be interested in a bunch of
upper Midwestern hicks and their rube humor?" PHC of course turned out to be
the biggest success story in all of public radio and sparked the formation
of PRI. 

As far as RWJ, since we started in 1989 there have been many snoots who have
tried to keep us down, but somehow we just keep popping back up again. I'm
told that the series listenership continues to grow yearly at a healthy
pace. We are now in most of the biggest jazz markets including New York
(WBGO in Newark), Chicago, the Bay Area, etc. and maybe coming soon in other
top-10s (I will announce here when the time comes). 

But I hear that radio folks have been clearly seeing the handwriting on the
wall for years now--airwaves will eventually be replaced by listening on the
web. This is why I have been jumping up and down since 1995 to establish and
grow our web presence. The picture of the radio world seems to be slowly
emerging of one where there will be some kind of mix of on-air and internet
content, with on-air losing ground gradually. Lots and lots of folks are now
listening to us via XM Real Jazz Channel 70, mainly in their cars. 

The point is that media really are becoming more bottom-up than snoot-down,
and I think that's a good thing. So thanks to you all for keeping us on the
air, for however long there is air left to keep on. 

mopo