WAMU’s announcement that it will drop bluegrass music from its weekend schedule later this month and upgrade its HD Radio service prompted nearly three dozen listeners to post comments yesterday on DCist. A handful of listeners applauded the change: “I just don’t ‘get’ Bluegrass music. Waaay too twangy and countrified for me,” wrote one. But many others found reasons to object. The new Sunday afternoon news/talk line-up is “extraordinarily lame AND lazy,” wrote one listener. “This sucks. Bluegrass makes hangovers go away!” commented another. “I always liked WAMU weekends for the very reason that it wasn’t just like WAMU on the weekdays,” writes a fan of the Dick Spottswood Show and American Routes, Americana music programs to be dropped from WAMU’s flagship service.

The film Made in L.A., which runs tonight on PBS as part of the P.O.V. series, is an “excellent documentary,” according to a New York Times review. The doc follows the labor activism of three Latino women in L.A.’s garment manufacturing industry. Writes the Times’ Andy Webster: “Congress may not be able to decide how to process the nation’s illegal immigrants, but the film understands that they’re simply here, an integral component of the economy.”

The new PBS kids’ show WordGirl “doesn’t just teach, it also entertains with humorous situations that should appeal to children and their parents,” writes Pittsburgh Post-Gazette TV critic Rob Owen. The new Super Why!, however, is a “sugary-sweet show that may entertain its target audience of 3-to-6-year-olds, but may repulse parents the same way Barney does.”

“WordGirl takes the [superhero] conceit back to an earlier era, with a sensibility that could only have been conceived by creators who may have watched too many Rocky and Bullwinkle shows,” writes Elizabeth Jensen in a New York Times article about the new PBS children’s series.

Jody Foster’s latest heroic movie role — in Neil Jordan’s thriller The Brave One — is a public radio personality who becomes a vigilante when her fiancé is killed and the justice system fails to do justice. NPR’s Bob Mondello says he hears talk the Warner Bros. film may be an award-winner. See the trailer on Fandango.

WAMU in Washington, D.C., announced that it is dropping all bluegrass programming from its weekend schedule and replacing long-running music shows with news/talk programming. The station will invest in major upgrades to its HD Radio service, WAMU Bluegrass Country, by broadcasting up to eight hours daily of live-hosted programs on 88.5-2, and will give away 1,000 HD Radios to listeners who contributed to its bluegrass programming within the past year. WThe station once broadcast more than 20 hours a week of bluegrass and other acoustic American music, according to Washington Post columnist and blogger Marc Fisher. hopes to continue to serve bluegrass listeners by upgrading it digital channel WAMU Bluegrass County

WAMU in Washington, D.C., announced that it is dropping all bluegrass programming from its weekend schedule and replacing long-running music shows with news/talk programming. The station will invest in upgrades to its HD Radio service, WAMU Bluegrass Country, by adding digital multicasts of live-hosted music programs on 88.5-2. It also will give away 1,000 HD Radios to listeners who contributed to its bluegrass programming within the past year. A third digital channel will combine news programming from the BBC and music from Triple-A outlet WTMD in Towson, Md. (All three schedules are posted here.) WAMU once broadcast more than 20 hours a week of bluegrass and other acoustic music programming, according to according to the Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher, who reports on the changes today on his blog.

“I think there is enough competition in the media world. Between iPods and downloads, there is enough competition without worrying about another station,” says Gerry Weston, g.m. of Public Radio Delmarva stations WSCL and WSDL serving Maryland’s coastal communities. The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., reports on plans for Baltimore’s WYPR to begin beaming its NPR News service into Ocean City and examines how competition from the distant station will affect local pubradio outlets.

“We like public TV as much as the next viewer, but we wonder whether the city of Pismo Beach had enjoyed one glass of wine too many when it agreed to pay $50,000 to sponsor a PBS reality series called ‘The Wine Makers’,” reads an opinion piece in The Tribune, the newspaper of San Luis Obispo County.

“The creation of Iowa Public Radio, and its early success, should send an important signal to a public radio system that is vastly overbuilt,” writes IPR Content Director Todd Mundt, in a blog entry describing the evolving state network’s first year of service. “Maintaining local public service is not the same thing as maintaining hundreds of independent stations.”

After learning that a mega-church that actively opposes the gay rights movement had been booked for his upcoming appearance in Portland, This American Life host Ira Glass requested a change in venue, according to local news accounts. Oregon Public Broadcasting, which is hosting the event, defended its first choice of venue but later rented the convention center.

After his critique of Bill Moyers’ commentary on Karl Rove, PBS ombudsman Michael Gelter says he got a load of pro-Moyers mail. In his Aug. 24 column, Getler questioned Moyers’ reporting on Rove’s religious convictions.

In a press release today, PBS details “a number of broadcast premieres and encore presentations that recognize the cultural, historical and societal impact of America’s growing Hispanic community.” The programs, to air during Hispanic Heritage Month, come in the wake of protests against Ken Burns’ upcoming series The War. Latino groups, concerned about the lack of Latino vets in the WWII film, have asked PBS for assurance that it would work harder to include Latinos in “current and future programming” (Current, Aug. 27). Some Latino filmmakers have credited the Burns controversy with opening doors for them at PBS (via AP).

Eva Georgia, embattled g.m. of Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles, will leave the job on October 31, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Being General Manager of a progressive community radio station isn’t easy,” said Greg Guma, Pacifica executive director, in a statement reaffirming the Pacifica National board’s support for Georgia. “In fact, it’s a tough and draining job.” Georgia has been accused of sexual harassment and racial discrimination in two pending lawsuits.