A WOEBEGONE FAREWELL TO RADIO’S KEILLOR

The Powdermilk Biscuit company, Bertha’s Kitty Boutique and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery will soon go belly up and already tickets to the wake look as if they are going to be scalped at premium prices.

When the entire town of Lake Wobegon, Minn., vanishes from the airwaves June 13, a $12 ticket to witness the farewell of long, tall Garrison Keillor and his “A Prairie Home Companion” could cost as much as a ticket to the Super Bowl.

“Calls are running at about 3,000 a day and the World Theater only holds 1,000 people,” said William Kling, president of Minnesota Public Radio which produces Keillor’s program. “By the end of this week, we expect to have received 22,000 calls about tickets and there are only 17 shows left.”

The best-selling author of “Lake Wobegon Days” is going to return to being “a shy person” after 13 years as radio’s preeminent storyteller. He made the on-air announcement Saturday, surprising the network that carries “A Prairie Home Companion” and the 275 radio stations that broadcast the show each week--as well as 4 million Keillor fans.

As with most of the Keillor shows, the final program will air from the World Theater in St. Paul, Minn., on June 13.

Keillor said he plans to write and has no immediate plans to return to broadcasting.

“I want to resume the life of a shy person and live with my affectionate family a more peaceful life, a life in which there are Saturdays,” Keillor told his audience. “I want to be a writer again.”

Last year, Keillor married a high school sweetheart after rekindling their romance at their 25-year high school reunion. She had been an exchange student from Denmark. He plans to leave the United States as well as Lake Wobegon and live, at least for a time, in his bride’s native country.

Keillor could not be reached for comment, but his longtime producer Kling told The Times on Tuesday, “I can’t tell you much more than what he said. He’s worked here for almost 19 years, 13 of which were with ‘Prairie Home.’ I can tell you that on three previous occasions he has stopped broadcasting to write.”

Each leave of absence was about a year and each time, Keillor returned to Lake Wobegon. Though this departure could be final, Kling said the door will remain open for the 44-year-old humorist’s return.

In the meantime, Kling has hired another 44-year-old to replace him. National Public Radio’s Noah Adams, co-host of the network’s afternoon news magazine, “All Things Considered,” told his drive-time audience on Monday that he would soon be leaving for Minnesota to develop a new Saturday-night program that would include many of the successful elements of “A Prairie Home Companion” as well as some new surprises.

Though Adams’ two-hour variety show will not be unveiled until late April when public radio officials gather in Columbia, Mo., for their annual conference, Kling said it will not be a copy of “A Prairie Home Companion.” The new program will premiere on Minnesota Public Radio in June and will be offered nationally by September.

“We hired Noah because, in my view, he is one of the most effective people I’ve met in understanding how to use the medium of radio,” Kling said. “He’s a Kentuckian and has a broad music background in bluegrass, country and jazz. He’s very conversant with authors and knows literature and knows people who can get involved. He’s not a humorist in the way that Garrison is but he has an incredible warmth.”

National Public Radio spokeswoman Paula Darte said Tuesday that there have been no permanent replacements selected for either Adams or Susan Stamberg who teamed to make “All Things Considered” the NPR mainstay for more than a decade. Guest hosts will anchor until permanent hosts can be found, she said.

Stamberg left the show last fall to host a Sunday-morning program over National Public Radio called “Weekend Edition.”

Like Stamberg, Adams said he was exhausted from hosting the daily news magazine for several years and welcomed the opportunity to move on to a less grueling once-a-week program. He won’t be leaving “All Things Considered” until the end of March.

“(The new show) is not designed to replace ‘A Prairie Home Companion.’ That would be a folly, I think,” said Adams.

Though the live Keillor program will disappear, die-hard fans still will have access to Lake Wobegon in reruns.

Earlier this month, Minnesota Public Radio and Disney Channel officials announced that the two-hour weekly radio program of music and storytelling would become a 90-minute television series on the Disney Channel beginning March 7.

Kling said that the last 14 shows will be taped and broadcast on the cable channel later on the same Saturday night that the radio show is broadcast. He said the programs may be rebroadcast later in the year and will also be made available on videocassette.

In addition, Keillor will be leaving behind 13 years’ worth of recorded shows, according to Diane Engler, director of marketing for the American Public Radio Network, which distributes Keillor’s program via satellite.

“The program has been recorded since 1974 and we will be offering the best of those shows through June 30, 1988,” she said. “He didn’t go national until seven years ago, so a lot of these haven’t been heard by most of the country.”

She said “The Best of Garrison Keillor” shows will be offered to American Public Radio affiliates through June of 1988.

That is small comfort to the estimated 4 million listeners addicted to the Saturday night show.

“Everybody knows that for a couple of years now, Garrison has been talking about the fact that he was tired and that he didn’t know how much longer he could keep doing the show,” said Wallace Smith, general manager of KUSC-FM (91.5). Nevertheless, he said, the announcement shocked Smith, his staff and Keillor’s loyal following in Los Angeles.

KUSC breaks its classical music format each Saturday at 6 p.m. to broadcast “A Prairie Home Companion” live, and recently the station began repeating the show on Sundays at 2 p.m. The show is also carried over KPBS-FM (89.5) in San Diego from 3 to 5 p.m. Saturdays and repeated Sundays from 10 a.m. to noon. In San Bernardino, KVCR-FM (91.9) carries the program in the same time slots.

“It means that we lose one of the most popular programs that we have and it will mean a loss of our support,” Smith said. “There is reason to believe that there will be something to replace it, but a show like Garrison’s is not going to happen again.”

KUSC pays $115 to air “A Prairie Home Companion” live each week. No price has been set yet for either Noah Adams’ new program or “The Best of Garrison Keillor.”