The Best of @PubMediaFans — Edition #7
You know how it goes. It’s the week’s news in public media… through Twitter.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
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.
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 also the reason why KLRU 18 in Austin went off-air Wednesday night/Thursday morning for about two hours.
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.
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!

