by Penelope Bowler
April 2, 2007
The South End Newspaper
http://thesouthend.typepad.com/tsenews/2007/04/wdet_starts_new.html

WDET Detroit Public Radio will launch its new program schedule today. The station is altering its program content again in order to move toward a news and public affairs format. The station's mission is to "provide metropolitan Detroiters with the best local and national programming that public radio has to offer," according to a press release from WDET.

WDET has been restructuring its programming and gradually changing its format since December of 2005 when the station began changing its programming, as well as its management.

The station will add five new syndicated NPR programs to their schedule: "Marketplace," "Talk of the Nation," "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!" and "BBC World Service." In addition, the station will introduce a local two-hour weekday public affairs program called "Detroit Today."

The new program will air from 10 a.m. to noon and feature news, interviews and discussions on local government, politics, education, business and industry, health, history, cultural affairs, sports, lifestyle issues, technology and live musical performances. Similar to the NPR show "BBC World Have Your Say," the show will interact with listeners via e-mail and telephone calls. "Detroit Today" will be produced by WDET's award-winning newsroom.

"The new program schedule reflects WDET's commitment to be a public radio service that is uniquely designed for metropolitan Detroit," said Allen Mazurek, assistant general manager and program director, in a press release. "Our new local program will give the station the opportunity to interact with the community in unprecedented ways and will further establish WDET as a leader in news and information programming."

Some shows that will no longer air include: "Alternate Take with Liz Copeland," "Front Row and Center,"

"Day to Day" and "The Best of the DSO."

"The university is in favor of the station pursuing more of the news and public affairs programming," said Kevin Piotrowski, WDET's public relations and promotions director.

"In January of 2007 Bruce Goldsen was hired as a broadcasting consultant to come in and make some evaluation of this station from an operational point of view, from an audience point of view and then make some recommendations to the university about how to move forward with the radio station.

"Bruce's recommendation to the university with regards to the programming direction of the station was news and public affairs, and that's based on growth patterns in public radio where stations that have experienced the largest amount of growth over the past 10 years are public radio stations that are public affairs-oriented."

Piotrowski cited several reasons for changes made during the last few years, including a lagging listener base, and as a consequence, a decrease in monies generated through fundraising.

This could be attributed to many factors such as the state of the economy, listeners who left the station after the first set of programming changes were made to the schedule and the availability of NPR shows and music via the Web.

According to Arbitron ratings, since 2001, WDET has experienced a loss of 60,000 listeners, according to Piotrowski.

The station's management and the university are trying to create a program schedule that fits the needs of today's Detroit. They plan to have more localized news and public affairs content, while still incorporating music.

"The university and WDET management decided to make WDET a news station and focus on programming that is unique to Detroit," said Nabelah Ghareeb, vice president of business operations at

Wayne State. "We opted as a group to go in that direction." For a complete listing of WDET's new program schedule, please visit www.wdetfm.org.