Reality Spurs Reinvention For Public Radio

• Given the serious financial challenges now facing public radio and television, WLRH 89.3 FM/Huntsville, AL, North Alabama’s Public Radio station, has had to make some tough choices — most notably, effective Oct. 1, the station will no longer air national programming from NPR and instead, focus on locally produced news and programming content.

The official announcement, posted HERE, reads, in part: “With recent federal funding cuts to public media and costs associated with subscribing to NPR content, WLRH is making the difficult decision to stop airing Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other NPR distributed shows. NPR programming currently accounts for about 32% of WLRH’s weekly schedule.

At a time when many public radio stations are making tough decisions to eliminate staff, WLRH is hiring new positions to better serve our listening audience with more local programming, such as an original, community-focused morning show, featuring news, voices and stories about the Tennessee Valley.

WLRH staff will be working together to get back to the station’s roots of focusing more on our long-standing existing local programs, as well as developing new programming to better reflect our community. The WLRH audience will hear more local news, arts, culture, classical music and music of all genres, and original storytelling. The majority of WLRH programming will remain in place.”

Erich Brukner (pictured, above), Division Director/Radio, for parent company Alabama Public Television and GM of WLRH, tells RAMP, “This is an awesome opportunity for us to do something new and different, and provide programming that no other station in the market, non-commercial or commercial, can do right now!”