Let me preface what I am about to say with this: I think what Bonneville, KTAR-FM and Arizona Sports 98.7 FM do with their Give-a-thon for Phoenix Children's Hospital is great. It is a real great fundraiser for a very good cause. What I criticize is that for two workdays straight (it started at 2:00 P.M. yesterday and runs until 6:00 P.M. this evening) both KTAR and Arizona Sports 98.7 air nothing but the give-a-thon for PCH. If there is breaking news (like there is today with the terror attack in Spain that, by preliminary estimates, has killed 13 people thus far), KTAR takes no breaks at all to provide coverage of any major news stories. This is unacceptable. At the very least, do the give-a-thon for PCH in tandem with your regularly scheduled programming, similar to what PBS and NPR does for their respective pledge drives. On PBS and NPR, they will spend about 10-15 minutes asking for people to donate money, but this is followed by a normally scheduled program (Prairie Home Companion on NPR, Rick Steves' Europe on PBS, etc...). On the other hand, Bonneville and KTAR's approach is to ram endless sad stories of PCH patients down our throats for hours and hours on end, begging for money and guilting people into donating. If you don't, well then you must be the devil incarnate because who wouldn't give to sick and dying children? Then, they spend the next few weeks talking about how great they are for raising that money and how they are the "#1 tele-a-thon in the country for raising money for a children's hospital." Some modesty would be nice.
Basically my opinion is this: I love the cause, I don't like the approach Bonneville and KTAR take in raising the money. If there is breaking news like there is today, maybe direct listeners to Arizona Sports 98.7 FM for the give-a-thon while covering the breaking news on KTAR. Heaven forbid any major breaking news should happen during the PCH Give-a-thon!
Basically my opinion is this: I love the cause, I don't like the approach Bonneville and KTAR take in raising the money. If there is breaking news like there is today, maybe direct listeners to Arizona Sports 98.7 FM for the give-a-thon while covering the breaking news on KTAR. Heaven forbid any major breaking news should happen during the PCH Give-a-thon!