After several requests from station supporters to give The Roots Music Projectmore time on the 89.1 WEMU airwaves, management has decided to move the program to a new time and expand it from two hours to three. Starting Saturday, July 19, the popular show and its host, Jeremy Baldwin, can be heard starting at 4:00pm.
"Jeremy has a great following in this community," said Patrick Campion, WEMU Program Director. "Moving the program to a little later time on Saturday opens it up to an even larger potential audience and lets us more easily expand it to an additional hour. This also gives us a chance to move some other local programs around that pair up well with The Roots Music Project."
From Memphis To Motownand host Wendy Wright will move from 7:00pm Sunday to 1:00pm Saturday.
"Wendy's blues selections are a great lead in to the rest of our new Saturday lineup," Campion continues. "Again, this gives her an opportunity to be exposed to a new and wider audience with a program we believe has a lot of potential for growth."
The Roots Music Project will be followed at 7:00pm by Cuban Fantasy. Staying at 9:00pm is Global Village with Chris Heim.
Saturday mornings will also change as part of this programming transition. Weekend Edition Saturday will replace Bob Edwards Weekend at 8:00am and the popular NPR program TED Radio Hour will move into the 12:00pm slot. This American Life and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me will remain at 10:00am and 11:00am.
"We had another record year of support from our generous donors," said WEMU General Manager Molly Motherwell. "Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to overcome funding reductions we had from other sources. This led us to have to make some difficult decisions regarding weekday and weekend programming such as discontinuing PRI's Bob Edwards Weekend. With This American Life leaving PRI and moving to a new distributor, it just wasn't within our means to continue airing Bob Edwards Weekend. And, as difficult as it is to sever a relationship with a syndicated provider, it's truly painful when you have to part ways with staff members that are well-liked parts of the WEMU family."
Also removed from the weekend lineup due to budget cuts will be 89.1 Jazz at 5:00am Saturday and 5:00am Sunday. 89.1 Jazz hosts Brad McNett and Daniel Long will remain with the station as weekend board operators and weekday producers. Syndicated programAmerican Routes will no longer be a part of the WEMU lineup. Mountain Stage will move to Sunday evenings at 7:00pm. The New Jazz Archive will move to Sunday evenings at 9:00pm.
These changes are in addition to the previously announced, budget driven elimination of Evening Sounds with host Evelynn Hawkins from the WEMU lineup. Ms. Hawkins has transitioned to another position at Eastern Michigan University as of Monday, July 14.
For a complete look at the new program lineup, go to WEMU.org and click on "Schedule." Station management encourages those with comments on or questions about this change to email Program Director Patrick Campion at pcampion@emich.edu.