Re: Changes at WBOS?

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

Those who lament the departure of Robin Young from 92.9 may take comfort
in her occasional presence as a guest panelist on WGBH's Says You!  The
game of "witty and whimsical wordplay" is heard on New Hampshire Public
Radio and WPNI Amherst in addition to WGBH (check your local listings!).

I didn't much care for Says You! when it debuted.  It struck me as a
second-rate effort to imitate the BBC's long-running My Word.  It wasn't
nearly as classy and the American panelists weren't nearly as educated
about the English language as their British counterparts.  Now I have
come to appreciate Says You!  It has established its own identity as the
panelists clearly have a lot of fun (and a lot of puns) while they
struggle to answer the questions.  Bonus: Frank Ferrel's fiddling is
fantastic.  Some weeks his musical fills on Says You! are the only
traditional folk music heard on NHPR (I know, there's a 4-hour Folk Show
on Sunday nights, but many weeks it's nothing but contemporary
singer-songwriters).

As far as I know, WFMT's Fine Arts Network still distributes My Word.
WBUR and Maine Public Radio continue to air the show long after Frank
Muir and Dilys Powell shuffled off this mortal coil.

In another niche for which NPR has attempted to provide a domestic
product, Sounds Like Science never won me over.  I guess it never will
as the show went out of production in September after a three-year run.
It mostly seemed to be an excuse to get a little more mileage out of
science reports previously heard on NPR's daily news magazines.  I
remain devoted to the CBC's Quirks and Quarks, still in production after
a couple decades.