In the 1920s, the ambitious, clear-eyed son of German immigrants drove down from Bismarck on a frigid night looking for New Orleans, but pulled off with his freezing band at a hotel in Yankton, South Dakota.Ī show program for the 1969 Corn Palace Festival featuring Lawrence Welk's orchestra, which played 15 shows over a week's time. While Welk was a North Dakota native (born in Strasburg), the celebrated "champagne music" maker cut his chops one state to the south, according to his 1971 memoir. "What we've seen in the ratings has been a trendline downward," Miller acknowledged.
But station officials say that number has dropped off over the last five years, especially over the last year as the pandemic has sent more viewers to digital spaces. Just a few years ago Welk drew big audiences for the public station unaccustomed to blockbuster viewership, says Miller. Still, there's also a sense in South Dakota that, for whatever reason, the viewers - always at the top end of the plus-65 demographic - just aren't there anymore. "Oh I don't believe that," Susie Dowdy scoffed, on a phone call last week.
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