Give Now Or We'll Keep Talking

Today marks the first on-air day of the KQED winter pledge drive. The radio station's hoping to raise some serious cash in the next two weeks. We wish them luck -- and wonder how many NPR junkies will be switching over to KALW in search of an uninterrupted fix of Robert Siegel or Renee Montagne.

While SFist appreciates the need for fund-raising and can certainly understand the desire to raise as much money as possible within a set time frame, we also wonder if there's room for a new pledge model: quit the drive the minute the goal-meeting pledge rolls in. We bet that model would get a lot of takers too -- we've already debated the merits of asking the nice volunteer on the other end of the phone line whether he or she can yank one of the guilt-tripping pledge pleas off the air in exchange for us bypassing the free-gift-with-pledge we're supposed to get.

Owing to the vagaries of the commute, SFist listens to about two hours of KQED each day -- enough to have made up lyrics to the intro music for both "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" -- and considers California-based "Marketplace" and KQED's own "The California Report" to be daily must-listens. Support the great programming and pledge, would you?

Image of the KQED long-sleeved t-shirt in sage green -- yours with a pledge of $120 -- from the KQED pledge gift page.

By SFist Lisa, contributing