Since its inception 30 years ago, my wife and I have donated enthusiastically to Maine Public Radio. For us, it stood alone as the provider of in-depth local, national and world news coverage. Even more importantly, it supplied us all day and in the evening with classical music. In recent years, extended news coverage has encroached somewhat into the playing of music, but we understand from Charles Beck, vice president of Maine Public Radio, December will usher in a drastic revision of format, wherein much time formerly given to providing music will be displaced by talk shows.

The crowning blow for us is the promised doing-away with the Sunday-evening broadcasts of “Pipe Dreams and the Saturday afternoon performances of the Metropolitan Opera from New York City. All of these changes come practically on the heels of a successful fund-raising appeal, during which no hint was given of imminent changes shortly to be instituted. We feel betrayed. It appears the new format has been inspired and initiated by public radio employees under the leadership of Beck.

The opinions of public radio listeners should have been solicited in advance of proposals presented both over the radio and by mail to subscribers before decisions were made by the administrative implementers of “the new order.” It is not sufficient for Beck to insist that perceptions of need determine the proper direction for Maine Public Radio when his organization has not polled its supporters. Minority interests in our society deserve to be addressed and not suffer from increasing deprivation. E. Northwood Kenway Bass Harbor

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The accelerating progress of the Maine Public Broadcasting establishment under Gardiner, Beck, et al. toward the final swamp of the commercial blatherings is regrettable. That the Metropolitan Opera will no longer be accessible in eastern Maine removes this member’s support no matter how many “drives” they choose to mount in the future.

My children, grown now and gone, used to look forward prior to bedtime to the stories read to them over public radio. Dick Estelle read fine literature to us at lunchtime. I wonder when Isaiah Shepard will get the ax on Sunday evening after dinner? The opera, Victor Hathaway every afternoon, all to be gone and replaced by what? Merchantable talking heads and silly notions?

People need the fine arts. They are gentling. Graspy, competitive commercialism all the time is not the point on which public broadcasting was founded. That Gardner-Beck-et. al. are choosing the “steeple chase to nothing everywhere,” as William Faulkner described our culture’s trend, is not appreciated here.

John Lyman

Orono