I'm sure we could just simply sing Kum Ba Ya before every show and be just fine.
Seriously though, I don't get NPR out in the boonies very well, but when driving somewhere on the weekends I always tried to catch it. I'm lucky I didn't run off the road from laughing so hard.
I heard them in an interview one time say that they did the show for free for several years before they decided to ask to be paid.