Listeners to Wisconsin Public Radio’s (WPR) NPR News & Music station in La Crosse, 88.9 FM WLSU, will hear some new programs overnight and on the weekends beginning March 8. The changes will align the station schedule with WPR’s existing statewide NPR News & Music schedule and allow listeners to hear a mix of Wisconsin and national shows that they’ve been missing.
“The most notable change will be the amount of jazz music we air overnight on weekdays,” Ezra Wall, WPR’s Regional Manager in La Crosse, said. “Jazz has played an important role for WLSU over the past 50 years, so we didn’t make this change without careful consideration, but our listeners let us know that it was time to move in another direction.”
Starting at 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday nights, listeners will now hear live-hosted classical music after “Fresh Air” instead of “The World Cafe.” Classical music will continue through the night until 4 a.m., replacing a mix of pre-recorded, archived or syndicated jazz and blues programs.
On Friday nights, WPR’s regional current affairs program “Newsmakers” will continue to be heard at 7 p.m. “Jazz Night in America” will move to 8 p.m., followed by “Jazz Network” from 9 p.m. until 1 a.m. Live hosted classical music will air from 1 to 6 a.m. on Saturday mornings.
On Saturday afternoon, the rebroadcast of “Swinging Down the Lane” will be replaced by the live, weekly broadcast of “The Metropolitan Opera” (when the Met Opera is in season, typically December through May) or WPR’s own “Saturday Classics.” Jazz music continues on Saturday night at 9 p.m. Live hosted classical music will air from 1 to 6 a.m. on Sunday mornings.
On Sunday evening, WPR’s popular statewide folk and Americana music show, “Simply Folk,” will air from 5 to 8 p.m. and replace the current line-up of “Fresh Air Weekend” at 6 p.m., “All Songs Considered” at 7 p.m. and “Alt Latino” at 7:30 p.m. “From the Top” will move from 5 p.m. and replace “The World Cafe” at 8 p.m. Live hosted classical music will air from 9 p.m. Sunday to 4 a.m. on Monday mornings.
“Bringing our evening and overnight programming into alignment with WPR’s statewide NPR News and Music service will allow us to offer more live-hosted music and redirect our resources to projects with a more noticeable impact on our listeners. We are excited about the changes and hope our listeners will be, too,” Wall said.
Changes to the weekend schedule start on March 13. A downloadable schedule of WLSU’s new schedule is available here.
