Listener Feedback

Comments from WEKU listeners phoned in to the Listener Comment Line at 859-622-1657, e-mailed to: WEKU (at) eku (dot) edu, or posted on Facebook.

Here’s a note from one of our earliest donors of the year 2016.  Daniel writes from Jellico, Tennessee, “I am an alumnus of Eastern Kentucky University. I recently left central KY to move back home and pursue my PhD at the University of Tennessee. My time in Richmond will always be special to me, and WEKU was a big part of that. I'm still listening!.”

Here’s a note from one of our earliest donors of the year 2016.  Daniel writes from Jellico, Tennessee, “I am an alumnus of Eastern Kentucky University. I recently left central KY to move back home and pursue my PhD at the University of Tennessee. My time in Richmond will always be special to me, and WEKU was a big part of that. I'm still listening!.” 

From the Listener Comment Line regarding our sister station Classic 102., “I’m listening to the ‘Lessons and Carols from Kings College, Cambridge’ on Christmas Eve.  It’s a “live” broadcast and recordings of yours keep popping in. It would be nice if the broadcast were complete without updates or commercials for things coming up. For next year, that would be nice if you could rectify that problem.” 

And we had a follow-up email, from listener “MK,” “How dare you cut off the broadcast from King's College.  You  want people to listen and SUPPORT you and you do this???  Grinch”

From the WEKU Listener Comment Line, “It has made me laugh and it has made me cry.”  This listener, choosing to remain anonymous, says The Moth Radio Hour is “the most wonderful radio show” he’s ever listened to. “Hopefully, one day you can extend it longer than an hour because an hour is just not enough. I really, really like it,” he says.”


From David  in Danville,   “I am a long-time loyal listener of WEKU, and now that I am retired, my preferred listening device is my Android tablet.  I have noticed in recent months that the volume of the webcast has gotten lower and lower.  Even when I have turned up my tablet volume all the way, it is barely audible more than 2 feet away.  (I have switched to fellow KY station WFPL a few times and they are louder, so it's not my device.)

We received a call Monday from a listener choosing to remain anonymous. She told us, “I moved here in May of this year.  Your station is the only station I’ve found that I could listen to and enjoy and today is the first day I’ve had a complaint."


On Tuesday morning, John Mark left a message to register discontent over our disruption of the weekly broadcast of Kentucky Tonight and its discussion of the upcoming session of the General Assembly. We chose to do so because of what we were told was an impending news briefing by President Obama including the President of France.  

The interruption was especially disruptive since the President did not speak until well after the broadcast of Kentucky Tonight was scheduled to end.

Here’s an email we received from listener, Andrea, “I love getting my news and features from WEKU and NPR. I’ve noticed that when the local announcer gives the weather during station breaks many times the forecast is given but not the current temperature." 

  


On Friday evening, we chose to preempt some of our evening programming, namely the Dinner Party Download, This American Life and SNAP Judgment so we could carry special coverage of the Paris attacks.  We’ve had numerous comments from listeners endorsing that choice. 

Among them is a tweet from Joe who wrote, “Great choice. Thank you for your continued excellence.”

On Thursday morning, Facebook visitor Peter posted, “Eastern Standard is interviewing a homeopathic doctor about the flu and vaccinations. Are you kidding me? Why not interview a faith healer while you're at it?” To which, Erik commented, “Not just a homeopath, a quantum nutritionist, whatever the hell that means.”   

That entire show is of course available at WEKU dot fm or downloadable as a podcast.

Listener Lee, from Lexington, responded to Tuesday night’s election coverage…

First up, thanks to Facebook fan Mick Jeffries of Lexington who posted, “Don't miss Lexington's own Kurt Gohde talking about the Kentucky Meat Shower on America's Test Kitchen on 88.9 WEKU between 11-noon!” 

For those who missed it, we’ve posted a link to this week’s America’s Test Kitchen within our web post of this week’s Feedback at WEKU dot FM.

As we mentioned last Monday, the six days and one hour of our fall fund drive served as a time of intense listener feedback.  I begin with a special message of thanks to all who supported the station during the drive, allowing us to reach our goal of $75,000 by the end of the drive last Tuesday evening.

Last week’s Eastern Standard show featuring EKU’s President and emergency officials discussing the school’s reaction a threat posted in graffiti in a campus restroom received a lot of interest and attention. 

On the station website at WEKU.fm, listener Don wrote a comment in response to a news story by reporter Stu Johnson, headlined Eastern Kentucky Residents Steadily Moving Forward Following Summer Floods,  Don wrote, “Wonderful writing Stu! Keep reporting on life and living!”

We begin this week with a comment from an anonymous listener about traffic reports, “Well, it’s 7:52 in the morning on the 21st of September and traffic is backed up from Versailles Rd. to the first Versailles exit on the Bluegrass Parkway, and the morning drive host is telling us there are no delays to be concerned about.  You don’t have anybody spotting for you or your head’s in the sand or something.” 

Last week we mentioned that we forwarded a question to NPR from listener Antoinette, “Is it true that NPR will not include Bernie Sanders as a viable candidate for the democratic presidential nomination?”

NPR released a statement in response to questions of this type, referring specifically to a story titled “Biden Fuels Speculation Of Presidential Run With College Affordability Speech.” 

A Lexington listener emailed us, asking to remain anonymous.  He begins by saying, “Thanks for the rush hour traffic reports.”  He then points out that we sometimes mispronounce one of the boulevards in Lexington, saying,  “Aristides is pronounced with the accent on the second “i,” which is a “long” “i,” as in Aphrodite, instead of like Euripides.”  

Aristides, the horse, won the first Kentucky Derby in 1875.

Last week we brought you some comments from listeners who stopped by to see us at two area festivals, namely the Woodland Art Fair and Crave Lexington. Here are some more comments from the weekends of August 15th and 16th and the 22nd and 23rd.    

The news story on the WEKU website headlined,  Judge Orders County Clerk to Issue Marriage Licenses by August 31st, received a number of comments in the Disqus area attached to the story.

Among those comments, one from a writer self-identifying as “Stryke,”  “So, in America, a land of laws, any little two-bit clerk can just pick and choose which ones he/she will abide by and enforce? Regardless of Supreme Court rulings? Have we gone utterly insane?” 

Here’s an update on transmitter problems in Hazard and Pineville:  First, the tough one, Hazard. We are awaiting a response from an insurance adjuster about that situation, hoping our claim of possible storm damage will provide some funds to help us get a new transmitter on the air.  As for now, 90.9 is still operating at about 500 watts.  That about 5% of the normal power for that station.

In the midst of our efforts to find the funds to replace our transmitter for 90.9 in Hazard, we have a situation in Pineville.  The transmitter for 90.1 WEKP went off the air, possibly during a storm last week and remains off the air today.

Our engineers traveled to the site on Friday and are working with the manufacturer to diagnose and repair the problem keeping it off the air.

Judy posted this on the website at WEKU.fm regarding last week’s Eastern Standard,  “Thank you for your recent program on the projected effects of climate change. I was able to hear only a portion of the program as I was in transit to a meeting and listening on my car radio."

Here's an email we received from listener, Jerry, "I  live in Johnson City, Tennessee and my family lives in Lee County Virginia. We can no longer hear WEKU on the radio. Please get it back on the air. What is the problem?"

Jerry's email represents numerous emails, phone calls and other messages we’ve been receiving for the greater part of the past two weeks.

We’ve had another major problem with our transmitter at 90.9 FM. It went off the air last Tuesday morning during a thunderstorm and our engineer worked two full days trying to get it back to full power. Sadly, Phil Hayes was unable to do so and apparently the outdated and elderly equipment has passed the terminal stage.

    

The signal is back on the air operating at very low-power until further notice. Thankfully, we are able to provide service once again to immediate Hazard/Perry County area and communities nearby.

Last week we aired a comment from Mona, concerned that we were canceling The Dinner Party Download.  I wrote to her explaining the new Friday evening schedule and here’s part of her response, “As you surmised, I discovered (to my delight) on Friday evening that Dinner Party Download had simply been shuffled in the day's schedule -- it is such a great way to kick off the weekend!"


Here’s another response to the question of whether listeners still appreciate Car Talk in its current form as a “best of” program. Jana, of Frankfort writes, “I actually started listening to WEKU rather than another area station because you carry Car Talk."  

Jana continued, "I enjoy the old episodes and listen nearly every Saturday morning while I lounge around trying not to get up and do anything productive!”

Last week, we aired a Facebook message from listener Rebecca, wondering if others shared her view that it was time to re-think the airing of The Best of Car Talk and we tossed it to you.  As of this weekend, we have had a total of three responses.  One from Tom in Lexington agreeing with Rebecca. 

On the Listener Comment Line, Susan left the following message on Friday morning, “Roughly at 8:45, you said that Juneteenth was the anniversary of the last state in the Union freeing its slaves. 150 years ago today, slaves had not yet been freed in Kentucky.”   

Susan goes on to tell us, “Because we were not a secessionist state, our state continued to hold some of our people in slavery in violation of their dignity.”

Pat emails us, “I love the NPR app for my Kindle, but WEKU seems to have disappeared.  I have tried zip code, city/state and call letters with no success. Any search tips?” 

We’re not sure what’s going on with the Kindle app for NPR but we’re going to check it out and report back to our listeners at a later date.

From the WEKU Facebook page, some comments about this week’s Eastern Standard show on the Shaping Our Appalachian Region Initiative and the economy of Eastern Kentucky.

Lisa wrote, “ Enjoyed this show and hearing the plans for Eastern Kentucky. Nice job Ian Mooers, your associates, and the host. This is always a good show.”

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