An entertaining pledge spot from Sir Patrick Stewart and WNYC.

Y’know, it’s kind of funny. One of the reasons you listen to public radio, one of the reasons you love public radio is because of the individual attention. All year, it feels like Scott Simon and Jad Abumrad and Diane Rehm and Robin Young are all talking to you. Not standing at a podium shouting to the masses, they’re next to you talking in your ear. And you hang on their words, you can’t get enough of them, you come back every day, week after week to find out what else they have to tell you...And then the fund drive comes along.

And Scott and Jad and Diane and Robin…they’re all still talking to you. But suddenly you think we’re talking to someone else. And every year, we try to find new and effective ways of convincing you that we are indeed talking to you during these drives. And each year we get a few more converts. But what if just this once, everyone listening right now called right now with a donation to this public radio station. What if you, because you’re listening right now, called right now.

RK:  Hello, I’m Robert Krulwich
JA:  I’m Jad Abumrad
RK:  And we’re here to bring back the romance of pledging.
JA:  Wait, what?
RK:  Well, pledging, Jad, is kind of sexy if you think about it the right way.
JA:  Did you just say sexy?  Pledging?
RK:  Hear me out . . . pledging has all of the hallmarks of a bold romantic gesture.
JA:  It does?
RK:  Sure
JA:  How?
RK:  Okay, imagine, somewhere out there a dashing stranger sits alone by the radio.  He likes what he hears.
[Tape from Click and Clack]
RK:  So he grabs the phone, and, with a kind of devil-may-care grin, he debonairly pledges to the station that he loves.
[Hello?  I would like to donate my money to you.]
JA:  Do you think there are any chivalrous admirers out there right now? 

RK: Well, you never know, but you can tilt your ear, fondly, to the phones here and wait hopefully.

[Music Out]

Host Al Letson shares the various scenes and sounds from around the country that public media brings to listeners and urges them to help support the service your station provides.