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It was pretty good. I went to the Sketchfest recording last year, with Alex Borstein, Brad Bird, and Dan Savage, and I have to say, because all of them were better in front of a camera (so to speak), it was definitely not as funny this year, but overall the experience was great. They have a routine, I guess.

Ophira comes out, and does maybe 10-20 minutes of stand-up (both times mostly jokes about San Francisco). Jonathan comes out and plays a song (last year First of May (Fucking Outside), this year it was IKEA). Then Art comes out. Then they give the usual audience warnings (don't shout answers, clap when the Make Noise signs flash), and then they record some sample applause (they asked for "medium and then Holy Shit applause," to put in as a transition between segments, then the actual recording began.)

The normal guests were good, everything went normally there, not much you'd miss on the edited version.

The first VIP was Steve Sansweet, a former Lucasfilm employee who's the founder and owner of a collection of Star Wars memorabilia with, he claims, over 350,000 items (www.RanchoObiWan.org). He was moderately entertaining in an old-guy way, and he brought a rare Jar-Jar Binks lollipop which you eat by opening Jar-Jar’s mouth and sucking on the tongue… And he tried it (Both Ophira and Jonathan refused)

The next guy was probably the funniest. That was Phil Johnston, a screenwriter who wrote Cedar Rapids, Wreck-it-Ralph, and Zootopia (Disney’s new movie). He told stories about having to get his cat gender-reassignment surgery to save it from a medical condition, and how in 7th grade he would buy porn magazines from high schoolers and then resell them. (I’m guessing they’ll release his uncensored interview).

Then the third VIP was Mo Willems (he’s been on the show before; he wrote the Pigeon books. He played a game with Phil (and they re-recorded Ophira announcing the actual score as 8/10 to a modified 7/8), then they did the Ask Me One More, and the show ended.

TL;DR - It was really fun, and I’ll definitely go next year, or if they come back again before then.

You do have to consider the historical and organizational implications involved here, at a certain point.

There are many many many stations and public radio networks like those in Wisconsin that are lacking in local shows, and I would suggest listening to most of their programming before passing judgment. At many/most stations, the funding for solid local programming week to week is often just not there, and it takes significant amounts of funding to start and improve local programming, let alone increase an online presence.

That said, they're probably pretty lackluster, and that's unfortunately part of the norm. But you're coming with expectations set by one of the best, oldest, and well-established public radio systems in the country. Essentially, this is less of WI public radio being lacking and more of MPR excelling beyond the norm.

MPR is one of the oldest public radio and educational systems in country. It preceded NPR by organizing a really solid network of educational broadcasters. In 1973, MPR president Bill Kling pulled so much political weight within the public radio that he formed a rival group of public radio station managers that, in several ways, accused NPR of being to beholden to congressional lobbying for necessary funding. As a result, Kling took a seat on NPR's board of directors and started to use a heavy hand in the future of the company.

Kling also oversaw the development of A Prairie Home Companion, which was the first nationally syndicated public radio program to challenge NPR's dominance over public radio content.

This all kind of led up to the reversal of the public radio funding structure under NPR President Doug Bennet's administration. After major financial struggles and increased pressure from both congress and station managers, the US public radio system would no longer provide funds to NPR, which would in turn go to member stations. Instead, public funds from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would go directly to stations, who could then, in turn, shop around different non-profit sources for public content. One of those sources would be MPR's American Public Media.

Today, MPR has the benefit of being one the larger providers of content via their parent organization, APM. So you actually have a middle-sized corporation running the show at MPR compared to, well, most of the country. Some states have established systems that work with all of the their stations to produced shared content, but only a handful have the capacity to syndicate content on such a large scale as MPR.

TL;DR: You went from the best of public radio to the sadly underfunded status quo of public radio.

Edited: Sources

Listener Supported by Jack Mitchell

NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of US Public Radio by Michael McCauley

It's an "Apartheid State of Self-Defense". People always intentionally drop the wider context when using the intellectually dishonest "apartheid state" smear. They seem to conveniently forget that the Palestinians hope to slaughter the Israelis.

If the Palestinians are suffering it's because they did it to themselves. They refused a two state solution when offered in 1948 then tried to genocidally exterminate the Jews with the rest of the Arab world. Since then they've engaged in countless terror-murder attacks over the years, elected a terrorist organization (Hamas) to be its representative in Gaza, and fired rockets.

In contrast, if they had made peace with the Jews in the late 1940s the Jews could have introduced them to the values and wisdom of Western Civilization, science, and technology, allowing them to build a modern economy. Instead of billions of dollars being wasted on war and military expenses, it could have instead been used for economic development. The Jews just wanted to live in peace and prosper, but the Palestinians and the Arab World chose a different path.

Keep in mind that the Islamic religion and culture is the exact same one that gave rise to the likes of the Taliban, Al Queda, and ISIS; it's not an accident. It's the same one where homosexuals are traditionally executed and where women are treated like chattel. That's the underlying culture and philosophy that plagues the Palestinians.

To learn more about the mindsets involved, I suggest the excellent historical fiction novels Exodus and The Haj.

Not an answer to the question you are asking but somewhat related.. there is a good book on what happened at Memorial after Katrina called Five Days at Memorial which I found to be a very interesting read.

Haven't read it yet, but there's also NPR: The Trials and Triumphs of National Public Radio.

"Listener Supported: The Culture and History of Public Radio" by Jack Mitchell is your best bet. The author was involved in the founding of NPR. The book's scope goes beyond just NPR but I imagine should have what you want.

https://www.amazon.com/Listener-Supported-Culture-History-Public/dp/0275983528

The Enough Said segment? Good topic, but he sure had a hard time getting words out a couple of times.

Yeah, Good Food not to be confused with Good Eats (RIP) Which doesn't take itself half so seriously.

Good time to pledge a few Portable Fan Forced Electric Heaters

My SO just picked up Out on the Wire, but I haven't read it yet.

You are of course aware of NPR's reputation for left-wing bias among half the electorate, and that NPR's funding is always low-hanging fruit when fiscal conservatives come to power in the House. Getting the vapors at hearing anyone to the right of David Brooks does nothing to dispel this reputation.

This is the same, tired Soviet propaganda narrative western communists have been shilling for the past fifty years.

If you want to read all the stuff elided from this bullocks, check out The World Was Going Our Way.