The Best of @PubMediaFans — Edition #7

You know how it goes. It’s the week’s news in public media… through Twitter.

Roly Ortega
Aug 22, 2017 · 3 min read

Here we go again! I hope people read our weekly newsletter and get a better understanding of what’s happening in the public media industry. Without further ado, here is this week’s newsletter.


News:

After a 31-year run at Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) including 14 years hosting her own morning show, Joy Cardin will be retiring on September 29th. She hosted her own weekday morning show on WPR’s Ideas Network from 6:00–9:00 a.m. but now, Kate Archer Kent will become the interim host beginning Monday, October 2nd until a permanent is named for that timeslot. WPR is hoping to relaunch that timeslot into a brand new show to replace The Joy Cardin Show next year. This comes just less than a month after Kathleen Dunn announced her retirement and retired last week.

A great career in public broadcasting will soon wrap up from Joy Cardin. She’s hanging it up Monday, October 2nd.

After a lengthy 18 year run at 91.3 WLRN-FM in Miami, Joseph Cooper is retiring. And with that, the station’s local flagship program, Topical Currents (heard weekdays at 1:00 p.m.) will be coming to an end. The program was hosted by Cooper and Bonnie Berman and has been on-air since January of 1999. Instead, a new program will take over that Monday-Thursday timeslot and will be hosted by WLRN-Miami Herald morning news anchor and reporter Luis Hernandez. It will begin on Monday, October 2nd at 1:00 p.m.

Topical Currents will end on WLRN, but a new program will begin Monday, October 2nd with Luis Hernandez.

After a 28-year career in Vermont public broadcasting, Robin Turnau, the president and CEO of Vermont Public Radio (VPR) since 2009, has announced of her intentions to step down in March of 2018.

Robin Turnau is stepping down as President and CEO of VPR in March of 2018 after a 28-year career, the last 9 as Pres.

Amazon Echo continues to be a hot product in providing smart services to your home. And if you have one, let Alexa play NPR content for you as more and more member stations continue to sign up with Amazon Echo so that listeners can catch up on their favorite podcasts or listen to their favorite NPR member station on the device or even catch up with the latest news from NPR.

More of NPR’s member stations continue to pop up on Amazon Echo.

On Wednesday, Kansas Public Radio (KPR) announced that it won seven awards from this year’s Kansas Association of Broadcasters awards. One first place award (Spot News), three second place awards (Hard News Feature/Enterprise — News Feature — Editorial/Commentary) and three Honorable Mentions (Complete Newscast — DJ Personality Aircheck — Station Website)

Congrats to Kansas Public Radio for winning seven KAB awards.

Programming Changes:

The Best of Car Talk is ending in September and continues to lose stations, which is not surprising. This time, New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR) has become the latest to announce its final airing and will do so on Saturday, August 26th at 10:00 a.m. No word as to what NHPR will replace the program with.

After Saturday, August 26th, no more Car Talk on NHPR.

More and more stations are announcing to carry NPR’s newest on-air shows that came from being as podcasts. Planet Money and How I Built This will now air on 91.5 KJZZ Phoenix starting Saturday, August 26th. No word as to what timeslot on Saturdays will KJZZ put both half-hour programs on its schedule, but from my thinking, it will probably be on Saturday mornings.

More new NPR programming is coming to 91.5 KJZZ Phoenix.

That’s not the only programming change that KJZZ will see starting Saturday. A Prairie Home Companion (APHC) with Chris Thile will also make its debut on KJZZ on Saturday. It will more likely air after the weekend editions of All Things Considered.

APHC will soon air on KJZZ as well starting Saturday.

Technical Problems:

On Tuesday, one of South Carolina Public Radio (SCPR)’s News/Classical stations went off air for maintenance. 91.3 WLTR in Columbia went off air temporarily and it came just a day after 89.3 WSCI in Charleston went off air for the same reason.

Maintenance is apparently a busy thing for South Carolina Public Radio as another station went off for maintenance as well.

Maintenance is also the reason why KLRU 18 in Austin went off-air Wednesday night/Thursday morning for about two hours.

KLRU 18 in Austin went off air for maintenance for two hours, the same reason why WSCI/WLTR also went off-air.

Birthdays:

Happy birthday WQLN! The station is celebrating the TV side’s 50th birthday, which took place on Sunday, August 13th. WQLN-TV is Channel 54, serving PBS for Erie and Northwestern Pennsylvania. It will celebrate its 50th birthday with a party on October 12th from 5:30–10:00 p.m. ET.

WQLN-TV turned 50 on Sunday, August 13th. It will celebrate that milestone on October 12th.

That’s what you need to know from this week. We’ll be back next week for more and if you found anything that we missed, e-mail me to roly4266@live.com or just find us on Twitter: @PubMediaFans. Have a great week!

Public Media Fans

Supporting PBS, APT and APTS (TV), NPR, PRI, APM and PRX (Radio). Also supporting Ind. public TV and Radio stations. | We’re the same folks as @PubMediaFans on Twitter.

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Roly Ortega

Written by

Television news junkie who likes to talk about local media as well as sports, Family Guy and other stuff.

Public Media Fans

Supporting PBS, APT and APTS (TV), NPR, PRI, APM and PRX (Radio). Also supporting Ind. public TV and Radio stations. | We’re the same folks as @PubMediaFans on Twitter.

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