(Photo: Nicolas Genin, via Flickr/Creative Commons)
The death of the influential musician Prince prompted an outpouring of tributes Thursday, including on public media airwaves from his home state of Minnesota to the nation’s capital.
The Current, Minnesota Public Radio’s music station, quickly decided to program a chronological recap of Prince’s career, according to the Daily Beast. The marathon began at 12:09 p.m., as soon as the station verified the passing of The Purple One, with “The Beautiful Ones.” That initial marathon wrapped up at 10 p.m. Central time.
Due to “overwhelming response,” MPR worked with providers to upgrade capacity on the Current’s web stream, according to a spokesperson.
Prince programming resumes at 6 p.m. Friday with “Purple Reign,” featuring his entire catalog over approximately 26 hours. That repeats starting at 7 p.m. Sunday.
The station had a special relationship with the notoriously reclusive artist. Prince would sign off on programming blocks of his music and send ideas and albums he liked to management.
Last year, the musician tweeted during a “Prince A-to-Z” marathon. And when Prince heard about The Current’s fifth anniversary bash a few years back, he had his agent call the station for an invitation.
“And he said to me at the party, basically, ‘I’m here because of what you guys do in the community and I want to support that,’” Jim McGuinn, p.d., told Daily Beast. “And he meant that. He was a member of The Current, in that he donated money.”
Another Minnesota pubmedia neighbor, the youth-programming initiative ReWire at Twin Cities Public Television, assembled clips from Prince’s local appearances on TPT over the years, as well as from the musician’s 2009 interview with Tavis Smiley on PBS.
TPT also posted a video on its Facebook page of an impromptu Prince street party in Minneapolis.
American Public Media announced to stations that MPR had “multiple reporters” on the story at Prince’s Paisley Park studios after the news broke, and APM assembled a package of coverage and features.
In Washington, D.C., NPR made its headquarters sign purple, Prince’s trademark color.
.@npr pays visual tribute to Prince. #pubmedia pic.twitter.com/ekGlQAM01r
— Maria Thomas (@pesmou) April 22, 2016
Pandering to the listeners. Exaggerating Prince’s importance in music. Wasting mucho airtime that should be devoted to our Presidential election and other more vital stories. One short obit is all it should have been. 4 minutes.
You wanted a triple-A station to cover the presidential election?
NPR stations.
Ok, well this article is primarily about a triple-A station in Minneapolis.
MPR should not have a AAA station. Public radio has pretty much gone commercial.
And why is that?
Public broadcasting was originally intended as an antidote to commercial media and to air types of programming the commercial media does not run. Hearing full fledged commercials on public radio podcasts for example is going against everything public broadcasting was meant to be.
Examples of “full fledged commercials on public radio podcasts,” please.
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