I have been a member and listener of the “family of MPBS” when I could afford it. Now, however, I doubt that I will be again.

Feeling as deeply as I do about the changes inaugurated on Dec. 4, I have no other choice but to add my voice to those who have objected to date. I am appalled that the “research” has brought the Maine Public Broadcasting System to the position of supporting more “talking heads” types of programming. Commercial radio is so full of that, I can’t believe we need more of the same.

I am not pleased if MPBS can believe its research and what other public radio stations indicate as the way to go. I just don’t know what I and others like me are going to do. When I have traveled outside MPBS’ broadcasting range, I have heard what other public radio stations have been doing and I promptly shut them off.

Maine’s efforts, in my view, have always been to be different from all the rest of radio land – keeping classical music on its schedule to the greatest degree. This move, and I have seen it coming for some time with the encroachment of five minutes of news every hour on the hour, only proves what I have begun to believe. That is that we must always please the lowest common denominator to survive. Whatever happened to the challenge to be uplifting and different?

Oh, and the suggested alternative of WBACH, 106.9? That is a frequency that does not reach my area. Somehow, please say I won’t be left out; or is this just another way of southern Mainers saying to northern Mainers “You don’t count”?

David L. Rudolph

Dexter