Why You Should LOVE Hearing Radio Pledge Drives

The KSER March Into Spring Membership Drive begins this week.

Some people complain or (gasp!) change the station when they hear one of those 2-minute pledge breaks. But here are the reasons why you should absolutely love hearing public radio pledge drives - especially on community-owned independent public radio stations like KSER and KXIR.

First, it means you never have to hear commercials. And you never have to be concerned that the people paying for those commercials or the corporations that own those commercial stations are deciding what you get to hear (or not hear).  Instead of all those commercials (sometimes 20 minutes or more every hour) your financial donation is what keeps stations like KSER on the air.

Without your donations during pledge drives, you'd never get to hear Thom Hartmann or Amy Goodman.

If we don't do pledge drives and you don't make a donation, where else is Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson going to go be interviewed?

Where is Zippy, the mascot from Cafe Zippy, going to get airtime?

No pledge drives and no support from you would mean no local radio station where local artists like Preachers Wife could stop by and perform on the air with KSER's Ron Taffi.

And when you hear a pledge drive and you hear your friends and neighbors calling to support KSER and KXIR it means your neighborhood Scout troop has a new Saturday project.

Without those pledge drives and your calls of support KSER wouldn't be able to broadcast 40 free public service announcements every day for local non-profits and organizations. We wouldn't be able to support other regional events like Wintergrass, the Darrington Bluegrass Festival, The Thumbnail Theatre or The Folklife Festival.

When you hear the March Into Spring Membership Drive on KSER, don't think about how it might be briefly interrupting The Doctors or your favorite music show...think about how your support allows us to honor those who make a real difference in our communities with the KSER Voice of the Community Awards Celebration.

When national recording artist Mary Scholz is touring Snohomish County where else would she do an on-air performance if your contributions didn't keep KSER on the air?

And without a membership drive that keeps KSER on the air, what other local radio station would take an hour to host the Everett High School Jazz Band and help them raise money for a trip to Georgia for a national jazz competition?

You can probably think of dozens more reasons why stations like KSER are important to you. News and information that you won't hear much about on the 'corporate media' stations. Programs produced for KSER by organizations like Amnesty International or the Snohomish County Chapter of the League of Women Voters.  Or a full week of great music shows like Nordic Roots and Branches, Frettin' Fingers, Bluegrass Express, The Sunlit Room and much more all produced and hosted by volunteers.

So this week, and a few other weeks out of the year, when you hear people like Sondra Santos and Ed Bremer and The Doctors ask for your financial support think about how fortunate we are to have a community owned independent public radio station - or if you're on Whidbey or Camano, how you can now hear all those programs on 89.9 KXIR thanks to pledge drives and listener support.

Without pledge drives you wouldn't even be able to stop by and make a donation in person and bring along your dog for a free treat!

No dog? No problem. Just click here.