The weekly radio show about language, A Way With Words (not in any way related to this site’s blog and newsletter of the same name) has been canceled by KPBS, the San Diego public radio station that produces it. Evidently, the production cost was too much. Details are on the station’s press release.

Fortunately the show’s hosts, Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett are looking at continuing the program elsewhere. You can go to the show’s new website to find out more info when it becomes available.

What really cheeses me off is that I just sent KPBS a check because I’m a faithful listener of the show (in its podcast form) and wanted to support it. Then they go and cancel it.

I wish Martha and Grant success at finding a new location for the show. It’s a great show and hopefully will be back on the air to an even wider audience soon.

[Edit: Changed subject line to bring it up to date--dw]

It seems that your link to the press release is broken, Dave.  But on the show page at KPBS it has the following:

A Way with Words is on summer holiday – but we’re not off the air! We’ll be broadcasting encore editions of our program until early September. You can still get your logophilic fix right here each week, because we’ll continue to share what’s on our minds during our exclusive, web-only rants and raves. These new podcasts are our way of keeping in touch – and providing you with linguistic food for thought all summer long.

Here’s the San Diego Union Tripune on-line article they link to from their “Way with Words” website.

Edit: our local Public Broadcasting Station dropped it shortly after Lederer left.

In their podcast for August 3rd, Diegogarcity (credited to Wordorigins.org) is suggested as a “new word.” (about 2/3rds the way through). Not sure they got the definition right, though.

edit: Grant suggests David Epstein’s offering of newsrotica, a label for all the salacious stories that fuel the 24-hour news cycle in the Age of Paris Hilton.

Production costs? Surely such a programme could be run on a shoestring. (I speak from zero years of experience in radio, so please give this comment the weight it deserves.)

Yes, I heard the podcast, Dave has a thread about it. Wonderful to hear diegogarcity discussed on air!

I had never heard of this radio show, despite having double-tongued on my list of links. Of course, this is not that surprising since I live in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I am interested in the podcasts, though. Charles Hodgson, the very affable and generous soul who runs podictionary.com, has recently started providing transcripts of his podcasts. He remembered my aversion to podcasts from when I had added his site to my list, and notified me of the new service. I was profoundly grateful for this, since I find US English speakers painfully slow to listen to (I mean that literally - my patience wears thin and aggravation sets in whenever I have to listen to or converse with US English speakers). Transcripts of course mean being able to process the information at my pace, not the glacial pace of spoken US English. Is there any chance that the “Way with Words” podcasts will have transcripts available?

AWWW was on summer holiday, but production was canceled during that break. We’re already in talks with other outlets, so stay tuned for good news!

A “shoestring” is really what it costs to produce the show, but public radio is funded by a ball of shoestrings. Every scrap is precious and fought over. As I write in my comments about the show’s changes, the show could hardly be done for less without turning it into something weak and pale.

We don’t have transcripts of the show, I’m afraid. We simply do not have the manpower.

We didn’t suggest “diegogarcity” as a new word, we brought it up because Erin McKean was asking for a word for the phenomenon. I know the word is several years old and if I knew aldiboronti’s real name, I’d have given credit for coinage. I didn’t have any particular problems with the definition we gave. I didn’t suggest “newsrotica,” either: it came up at the DSNA open mic.

Grant Barrett - 05 August 2007 03:54 AM

We don’t have transcripts of the show, I’m afraid. We simply do not have the manpower.

No problem. Listening will teach me patience. And enunciation.

Grant Barrett - 05 August 2007 03:54 AM

We didn’t suggest “diegogarcity” as a new word, we brought it up because Erin McKean was asking for a word for the phenomenon. I know the word is several years old and if I knew aldiboronti’s real name, I’d have given credit for coinage. I didn’t have any particular problems with the definition we gave. I didn’t suggest “newsrotica,” either: it came up at the DSNA open mic.

Thanks for the corrections, Grant.  And the show.  Best of luck.

I know this is an old thread, but I just wanted you to know that “A Way with Words” lives! Brand-new shows begin airing the weekend of November 24th. Me, my co-host Martha Barnette, and our producer Stefanie Levine have acquired the rights to the show--and KPBS has agreed to continue to broadcast it.

You can find out more about public radio’s lively language show on our new A Way with Words web site.

—Grant Barrett, co-host of A Way with Words

Hurray—thanks for the update!

That is very good news.

Thank you.

The default radio station in my car is KPBS. For years AWWW has been the sole redeeming feature of creeping along Southern California freeways, so another grateful listener rejoices.