I had two reminders in the last week that it was WBHM‘s (our local listener-supported station’s) fall pledge drive. The first was while I was driving to cover last week’s Design Review Committee (trust me, we did get a couple of things from the meeting, just nothing that we can publish… yet). Driving to the meeting I tuned into NPR’s All Things Considered (it’s a hold over from my days in Savannah – if I’m actually listening to something besides local talk in the morning, it’s ATC).

The second was from a MySpace bulletin sent by a regular reader of the site and someone that I really would like to hang out with some more just to figure out what makes him tick. It was the second reminder that made me begin to think about the power of the wallet.

Everyone is aware of the power of the wallet, or as it’s normally referred to, the “money talks” approach. Now I have heard both sides of the argument about whether or not people should use pledge drives to influence what a station plays, but I’ve never really offered an opinion about it, until now. It’s especially interesting to me as people who frequent the web are still upset about the pending forced shutdown of internet radio stations as we know them and the growing ability to find your “voice” on numerous websites and blogs without relying on a standard being placed before you.

People who have this belief that listener-supported radio can change at will don’t seem to realize that when they send in their contribution during the midday classical music show that they really can’t complain if they really want to hear jazz, or News & Notes, or see more in-depth series like Birmingham: The Urban Divide produced on a more frequent basis. They spoke with their wallet and said that they wanted to listen to classical. And there’s nothing wrong with classical. When you’re typing a story at lunchtime and you know that you want some background noise but realize that a) ESPN will distract you if you’re at home and b) you’ll just start singing along if you listen to just about anything else, you want classical.

I’m also not saying to hold back your contributions to WBHM or any other listener supported station. Trust me, if we were actually making money right now I’d be making my contribution to them either sometime during Marketplace or Tapestry. I just figured that those that say that nobody listens to them about programming options need to realize that the power is in your hands if you ever decide to use it. It will not change if you continue to not say anything.

The same argument could be applied to public television, but my use of the power of the wallet would be different there. I was silly enough to get an HDTV (for an insanely low price) a few years ago, leading to my new obsession over crisp clear pictures and what were incredible shows on the national PBS HD feed. I’m never going to blame APTV for not carrying the signal because the cost was insane and at the time it was only servicing those of us lucky (or crazy) to have paid for or found a good deal on a set. But I will still be upset with them for not getting Charlie Rose, though I guess I can watch it online nowadays, now can’t I?

Thoughts?

André Natta is the publisher and managing editor of The Terminal. To submit letters in response to this commentary or to contact for general information, use any of the methods listed on our contact page.