"Weekend All Things Considered" and More "Blues" Joining WBFO's Weekend Broadcast Schedule

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- WBFO 88.7 FM, the National Public Radio affiliate operated by the University at Buffalo, is adding five programs to its weekend schedule and revising its Saturday and Sunday broadcast presentation effective the weekend of July 14 and 15.

The popular NPR News show "Weekend All Things Considered" will return to WBFO at 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. Lisa Simeone hosts "Weekend All Things Considered," which joins WBFO's weekday broadcast of the flagship newsmagazine of NPR programming.

More blues music will join the Sunday schedule, which will mirror Saturdays on WBFO. A second "Blues" show with Jim Santella will be heard from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. on Sunday.

"Jim Santella is a legendary Buffalo broadcaster, best known and remembered from the underground, progressive FM era," said David Benders, WBFO program director. "His current Saturday blues hours are an audience winner for WBFO. Blues is attracting a larger audience on the local area music scene, a trend that has been observed by most local music commentators."

"Selected Shorts" is set to air on Sunday at 4 p.m. Celebrity readers bring their talents to short fiction in this show, with the show matching Oscar and Tony Award-winning actors such as Meryl Streep, Holly Hunter and Leonard Nimoy with short stories by acclaimed contemporary and classic authors like James Thurber and Grace Paley.

NPR's "On the Media" will air at a more accessible time -- Sunday at 6 p.m. In today's fast-moving society, the media has become ubiquitous white noise. This show, hosted by veteran journalists Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, decodes what citizens hear, read and see every day. It will be partnered with the full hour of NPR's weekly environmental newsmagazine "Living on Earth" on Sunday at 7 p.m. "Living on Earth" currently is heard as a half-hour presentation on Friday at 6 p.m.

"Weekly Edition: The Best of NPR News" arrives on the WBFO schedule on Sunday at 6 a.m. The host is Neal Conan, a long-time correspondent for NPR.

Public Radio International's "Afropop Worldwide" joins the WBFO schedule on Sunday from 10 p.m. till midnight. Music-presenter Georges Collinet delights hosting this country's first and longest-lived weekly program on the music of Africa and the African Diaspora. The show is authoritative and hugely entertaining, with the presentations serving as both keen entertainment and astute explanation.

To accommodate these programs in the WBFO schedule, some shows have been shifted to alternate timeslots where they might develop a larger fan club. "This American Life," hosted by Ira Glass, who was recently named by Time as America's best radio host, moves to Saturday at 4 p.m.; "Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz" shifts to Saturday at 8 p.m.; "At the Jazz Band Ball" goes to Saturday at 9 p.m., "Bebop and Beyond" takes the Sunday 8 p.m. hour, and "Jazz Favorites with Macy Favor" shifts to Sunday at 9 p.m.

Programs departing the WBFO schedule as part of the change are "Sunday Polka Party," "Bluegrass," "Opus Classics Live" and "Whadya Know."

"We're excited to introduce the new schedule to our current and potential listeners," said WBFO General Manager Jennifer Roth. "We are interested in their feedback."

WBFO reaches nearly 100,000 listeners weekly in Western New York and southern Ontario with its 50,000-watt signal. WBFO serves the Southern Tier with repeater stations WOLN 91.3 FM in Olean and WUBJ 88.1 FM in Jamestown.