GARRISON KEILLOR ON THE AIR

Humorist Garrison Keillor rehearsed for a broadcast.

At 5 p.m. Saturday, KRCU listeners will be invited for the first time into the vaguely familiar and gently humorous world created by Garrison Keillor in "A Prairie Home Companion."

Almost 2 million listeners tune in weekly to the live radio broadcast from the F. Scott Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn., or occasionally from a theater somewhere on the road.

Every broadcast includes Keillor's signature monologue, "The News from Lake Wobegon," music by Rich Dworsky and the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band, and musical guests of the utmost diversity.

"A Prairie Home Companion" is one of three nationally popular programs beginning this week on public radio station KRCU.

"Marketplace," a show featuring financial news and features on the global economy, is heard weekdays from 6 to 6:30 p.m. The show began airing Monday.

At 10 a.m. Saturday, host Michael Feldman and his offbeat quiz show "Whad'Ya Know?" debuts from Madison, Wis. Keillor checks in with the celebrated "A Prairie Home Companion" at 5 p.m.

Keillor began "A Prairie Home Companion" in 1974, performing the first one before 12 people in a St. Paul college theater. Thirteen years and many awards later, Keillor ended the show and moved to New York, where in 1989 he started a program called "The American Radio Company." The show became "A Prairie Home Companion" once again in 1993 and returned to Minnesota.

It's the most popular program on public radio because "Garrison touches the common thread to the little things that make each of us a human being," says associate producer Stevie Beck, who has been with the show in some capacity since the beginning.

Keillor writes 90 percent of the scripts, Beck says,

Sound effects man Tom Keith also is an important part of the radio mix. "A lot (of the sounds) come from his mouth but he uses other accoutrements," Becks says. "...Styrofoam plates serve when the hauling truck backs up into whatever or when people sit on violins."

This first show will be a repeat of a January 1995 broadcast featuring the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra under the direction of pop and jazz singer Bobby McFerrin.

"Whad'ya know?" host Feldman asks at the beginning of his live radio program of the same name.

"Not much, you?" the audience in Madison, Wis., answers without fail.

From there, Feldman oversees a highly unorthodox quiz show -- one that includes phone interviews with unlikely guests, a phone call to the "town of the week" (chosen by throwing darts at a map), and music by the show's two-piece jazz band.

Contestants -- one via phone and the other in the live audience -- compete for prizes not to be found on "The Price is Right."

Between questions, Feldman is busy interviewing members of the audience. He got his training as a volunteer deejay on a Madison radio show called "Thanks for Calling," which he refers to as "a call-in for the bedridden, the elderly and the undatable."

Though he makes on-air references to his wife Consuela, Feldman actually is married to a physical therapist named Sandra and they have two young daughters, Ellie and Nora.

"Marketplace," hosted by David Brancaccio, is the only national public radio series about business and the global economy. The program takes a broad view of business, which means that any story that concerns money is a "Marketplace" story.

The show is aimed at public radio's core audience -- bright, well-educated people who nevertheless might not be astute in business.

The Columbia Journalism Review called "Marketplace" the best business program on radio or television.