http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/ ... 50f5c.html

Not sure that it had the same audience in Illinois that it had in Wisconsin, but this was like the public-radioiest public radio show ever. Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! is a ripoff of this, which itself was a painfully self-satisfied ripoff of You Bet Your Life: a loosely structured news-ish quiz meant to showcase the sparkling wit of the host and contestants, except the host was never that witty and the participants' wittiness always felt just a little too clever and seamless to have been truly extemporaneous.

It's a weird feeling to be sad about the loss of a broadcasting institution that you didn't like very much. I suppose I'll feel the same way when Garrison Keillor retires. Also, as someone who used to be a big Wisconsin Public Radio fan, it's a little concerning that they can't afford to produce shows like they used to. Out of curiosity, I remembered they used to carry chamber music concerts on Sunday afternoons and wanted to see who was coming up. They cancelled the concert series two years ago. Oops.

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Not much, you?

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Reality is your friend, not your enemy. -- Seacrest

I always thought it was a shame that smug bullshit Wait Wait was even mentioned alongside Whad'ya, and it's an even bigger shame that it's going to be the one still on the air.

I have pleasant memories of having Wait, Wait on the radio on Saturday afternoons, but it was incidental to the pleasantness. I've always said it's the one true "liberal bias" show from NPR, an hour of giggling about how stupid Sarah Palin is while Morning Edition sucks off the Pentagon and treats The Economy like a temperamental sky-father.

I liked the jazz trio that played on Whad'ya Know. Clyde Stubblefield on drums, cool!

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this line struck me, because my dad and i used to listen to this show when i was playing z-league youth basketball in springfield, mo in the early '90's. i really didn't want to go, because i sucked and was a total basketcase then. the only thing i looked forward to, honestly, was the car ride so we could listen to "wad'ya know?". i got a big kick out of it.

i didn't know it was still around; but now i am a little bummed. i may have to try and listen to the last broadcasts for old time's sake.

I consider any show that gives Mo Rocca a platform to be poison by default but I find Wait Wait unlistenable even when he's not on.

Could not agree more. Whad'ya was one of my highlights of working Saturdays. WPR spewed some bullshit about trending younger. Hopefully, Feldman will do a podcast.

That certainly can't augur well for Chapter a Day, then, can it? That was how I found Olive Kitteridge before HBO made a miniseries of it.

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Here is the response I got from Mike Crane WPR

Thanks so much for your note about Whad’Ya Know? Comments like yours remind me of why we’ve kept the show going all these years!



The decision to stop doing the show was very hard, but was in response to a striking trend: at one time the show was on 322 stations nationwide, but now it is on barely more than 100, with some additional stations indicating that they might drop the show as well.



Those stations helped pay for the program. Over the years we worked with Michael Feldman to creatively adjust, including reducing costs, adding an edited version of the show to help keep some stations “on board” and shifting to more Wisconsin-based “remote” shows when stations showed less interest in having the show come to their town.



We know that decisions like these have a real impact on listeners, and we’re sorry to be disappointing you.



Thanks so much for writing!


I'm not as big a pudwhack as most of you think

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Did you respond to their response with a gif? Because you definitely should IMO.

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I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Wow, I remember listening to this show in 1989 or 1990 or thereabouts. Every once in a while I think about it but then forget to see if it's still on. I sometimes listen to Wait, Wait..., but like Zeph find Mo Rocca to be completely unlistenable.

I'm also not too keen on Paula Poundtsone being part of the show and am not sure how she is still working after what she did.

I heard it on WCPT about five years ago. I don't know whether it was ever on WBEZ. I'm sure it was at some point, Feldman being a Chicago guy and all. Probably got the axe about the same time they got rid of jazz and anything that wasn't NPR-produced or super-serious.

A few years ago, Wisconsin Public Radio created a one-hour digest of the show to go along with the full program, which is notable only because it disturbed my weekend radio routine, replacing To the Best of Our Knowledge Saturday mornings at 9. I wrote WPR a strongly worded letter about the whole thing and everything.

Did you know there's a WPR member station in Elgin, of all places? I guess the high school station carries the News/Classical service when the kids aren't playing with it.

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