Chicago Public Radio is a noncommercial, public radio station broadcasting from Chicago, Illinois. Financed primarily by listener contributions, Chicago Public Radio is affiliated with both National Public Radio and Public Radio International.

Stations and call signs

Chicago Public Radio is broadcast on four FM radio stations, with call signs WBEZ (91.5 FM) in Chicago, WBEQ in Morris, Illinois (90.7 FM), WBEW (89.5 FM) in Chesterton, Indiana, and W217BM (91.3 FM) in Elgin, Illinois. Listeners can also receive the Chicago Public Radio broadcast online with streaming audio, MP3 download or by podcast. As of 2006, the station draws an estimated 600,000 listeners each week.

CPR also managed Loyola University of Chicago's WLUW 88.7 FM, heard on the North Side of Chicago and adjacent suburbs for a few years in the early 21st century. Although WLUW receives equipment and legal assistance from CPR, it is now otherwise financially independent.

History

Chicago Public Radio began as an extension of the Chicago Board of Education and began broadcasting as WBEZ in 1943. For most of its early years, the station only broadcast instructional programs, operating during the school year on weekdays while Chicago Public Schools were in session. In 1972, WBEZ joined National Public Radio and began general programming outside of school hours, not completely dropping instructional programs until the early 1980s. Initially, most programming outside of the instructional programs and NPR programs was jazz music. The Board of Education sold the station to the current license holders, the not-for-profit WBEZ Alliance, Inc., in 1990. The general manager since 1995 is Torey Malatia.

Programming

Programming on Chicago Public Radio includes the usual world music, quiz shows, and international and local news on a regular basis. It offers such staples as All Things Considered, Car Talk, Marketplace, Morning Edition and A Prairie Home Companion. Currently, Chicago Public Radio is best known nationally as the producers of This American Life through Public Radio International, and Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! through NPR. Generally, news and talk programming is heard during the day, with arts and culture programming on the weekends. Legendary jazz disc jockey Dick Buckley has a time slot Sunday afternoons.

Chicago Public Radio was at one time the flagship station of Steve Cushing's nationally distributed Saturday night blues music program Blues Before Sunrise, which started in 1979 and has been independently produced and distributed by Cushing since 1995; the program now airs locally on station WDCB. The station is also the flagship station of The Annoying Music Show!, a 3-5 minute program (which airs during a station break) that showcases generally annoying songs. The program is produced by Nayder Communications, headed by former WBEZ program director Jim Nayder. (Nayder Communications also produces the somewhat more serious Magnificent Obsession, a program of interviews with persons who have overcome various addictions, for which CPR is the flagship station.)

Its morning magazine program Eight Forty-Eight was named after the postal address of the station, 848 East Grand Avenue, though the name is sometimes misinterpreted as referring to its air time (originally 9:30am, currently 9:00am).

The other local program heard Monday-through-Friday is Worldview, an international news and analysis program that began in 1985 as Middday with Sondra Gair. After Gair's death in 1995, her producer Jerome McDonnell took over the program and has hosted since. It was heard nationally on Sirius Satellite Radio's now-defunct PRI channel from Sirius' inception until 2006. Starting March 2007, Worldview is aired on the satellite XMPR channel nightly.

The local arts program, Hello, Beautiful!, airs Sunday morning, and the rock music talk show Sound Opinions, which moved from WXRT in 2005, is distributed nationally by American Public Media. The "radio comic strip" 11 Central Avenue airs on Friday mornings during Morning Edition and is distributed nationally through the Public Radio Exchange.

In addition, Chicago Public Radio sponsors and administers the Third Coast International Audio Festival, a showcase for independent radio producers. It produces the weekly program Re:sound. Also, CPR is a founding member of the Public Radio Exchange, a programming cooperative for public radio stations and independent producers.

Programming changes

As of January 8, 2007, overnight music programming has been dropped. The new schedule was posted on the station's website. In its place on weeknights are repeats of the daytime local programming and Fresh Air, the BBC World Service program Outlook, and newscasts from the World Radio Network. Malatia has stated on the CPR message boards that more local programming will be added in time, when proper funding is received.

The music programs remaining on the schedule are the world music program Radio M (formerly Passport) and PRI's Afropop Worldwide on Friday nights, PRI's American Routes on Saturday evenings and Buckley on Sunday afternoons, although in an hour format instead of the three-hour program he had for many years. All other music hosts are being reassigned to other positions at the station, according to a March 2006 article in the Chicago Reader.

The replacement of music programming, which management said is caused by the prevalence and popularity of other music delivery systems, has caused controversy amongst many music buffs. Protest web sites were established; at this time www.boycottbez.com is still up, although no new material has been added since January 2007.

Along with the programming changes on WBEZ, on June 4, 2007 WBEW is scheduled to take on a new public affairs format built around contributions from listeners similar to the cable television channel Current TV, to be known as Vocalo.org.

A Time Out Chicago article from August 2006 describes the format as hosts in two-hour shifts programming what fits their fancy, be it interviews, pre-produced pieces, music or commentary. The general on-air tone of the hosts is to be more informal and personable than the usual public radio host, which is often perceived to be detached and stodgy. In line from this, Vocalo.org will not be marketed as a public radio station, will not broadcast any nationally-produced public radio programs and will not use on-air pledge drives as a funding source. Listener-supplied material will be culled from material uploaded to the station web site and recorded in neighborhood satellite studios and mobile recording stations at libraries, stores and events, similar to the "StoryBooths" of David Isay's StoryCorps project. Material will be posted on the web site for public listening and comment before broadcast.

A website was initially established at www.secretradioproject.com to gather people interested in participating in the new programming. The actual vocalo.org website is now in operation and streaming daily programs.

Although the separation of WBEW from WBEZ had been in the works for some time, it was widely considered that the station would be adopting some sort of music format, either an extension of the present jazz format or a AAA format similar to those of KCRW in Los Angeles, WXPN in Philadelphia and Minnesota Public Radio's KCMP, or "The Current."

External links

• Official website
• Query the FCC's FM station database for WBEZ
• Radio Locator information on WBEZ
• Query Arbitron's FM station database for WBEZ
• Program Schedule Official website
• Vocalo.org Official website
• This American Life Official website
• National Public Radio Official website
• Public Radio International Official website
• Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! Official website
• Third Coast International Audio Festival
• "The Business: All Talk,", Chicago Reader, April 14, 2006, Section 2, pg. 2