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WBFO launches new program lineup
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“We want to concentrate our efforts on what we do best, which is news journalism and public affairs programming.”
WBFO 88.7 FM, UB’s National Public Radio member station, will launch new programming weekdays and weekends beginning Feb. 1, expanding its array of award-winning NPR news, analysis and entertainment.
The new programming will feature six hours of additional NPR news and public affairs shows each weekday—from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. to 10 p.m.—and an additional hour of NPR entertainment programming on Saturdays and Sundays.
WBFO will continue its award-winning local news coverage and will air its jazz programming weekdays beginning at 10 p.m. and on weekends beginning at midnight. The station’s blues music programming will be heard on weekends from noon to 5 p.m.
Click here to view WBFO’s new program schedule.
Mark Vogelzang, WBFO interim general manager, said the new programming was selected with great care and consideration for WBFO’s more than 100,000 weekly listeners and in close consultation with the station’s advisory board. “This is a response to listeners’ requests that WBFO broadcast the programming they’re passionate about, which is the best of NPR news, public affairs, analysis and entertainment.
“We want to concentrate our efforts on what we do best, which is news journalism and public affairs programming, in order to make this excellent station an even stronger asset for the Western New York community,” said Vogelzang, the former president of Vermont Public Radio and a longtime member of the NPR board of directors.
The new weekday schedule features “On Point” at 10 a.m., a live news-analysis program hosted by award-winning journalist Tom Ashbrook; “Tell Me More” at 11 a.m., a news-talk show addressing a wide range of multicultural issues and hosted by former ABC “Nightline” correspondent Michel Martin; “Fresh Air” at noon and repeated at 7 p.m., the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues hosted by Terry Gross; and “Capitol Pressroom” at 1 p.m., a one-hour news magazine hosted by award-winning broadcast journalist Susan Arbetter and produced from the State Capitol’s Legislative Correspondents Association Pressroom in Albany.
The expanded weekend programming includes a prime-time Saturday morning broadcast of “Wait Wait, Don’t Tell Me,” the NPR News quiz show, at 11 a.m., and “Car Talk,” the funny and useful Peabody Award-winning call-in show about car repair, at 11 a.m. on Sunday.
Vogelzang said WBFO will look for opportunities to develop new locally produced news and public affairs programming. He noted that during WBFO’s proud 50-year history, the station was home to well-known public radio alumni like Gross, Ira Flatow and Bill Siemering, each of whom developed some of NPR’s most popular shows.
WBFO 88.7 FM is a major public service of UB and is Western New York's most listened to NPR station. It reaches a weekly audience of more than 100,000 people through its main signal in Buffalo and through repeater stations WUBJ 88.1 FM in Jamestown and WOLN 91.3 FM in Olean, and additional online audiences at WBFO.org.
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