Bob Edwards has always been a fan fav. His deep, rich voice and insightful reports have generated a huge following over the years. XM's subscriber base will definitely get a boost from this. I just hope Bob gets the big raise in the transition.
angry, without a doubt, someone as seasoned as bob edwards would get some good pay.
when they first retired him i thought he would look forward to not having to get up at 2 in the morning, etc. but i guess he is a classic newsman, it's in his blood-- he has to work...
the other thing that amazes me is, when did he find time to write his most recent book?
The book should make for interesting reading if it's anything like his voice.
Hey Gala, I just subscribed to XM. Bob's on tomorrow morning. Too bad I can only get it in my car.
oo, swimpy, let me know what you think. they announced on weekend edition that one of their best producers/sound guys defected to work with Bob. i like the idea of mini-mutiny against npr.
I only got to hear the first couple of minutes before I went into the office this morning. I wish he was on an hour earlier. He sounded great though.
Gala,
I got a chance to listen to Bob's show yesterday when I overslept. Since my drive to work takes about 50 minutes, I heard a good portion of it. He interviewed three people, but the only one I can remember was Terri Gross. Two great interviewers interviewing each other! Terri has written a book about her years at Fresh Air.
I just found this on the Chicago Tribune site.
Steve Johnson
Post-breakup, NPR and Edwards are doing fine
Published October 19, 2004
Six months after the upheaval in morning public radio, neither side appears in need of a pledge drive.
Bob Edwards, the 25-year host whom even NPR now admits it ineptly fired, is up and running on satellite radio, beating Howard Stern to the heavens by more than a year. Edwards hosts an eponymous and engaging new interview show, one where he can debrief David Broder on the election and digress to talk about the Border collie he got in a kind of celebration of his pink slip.
And "Morning Edition," the omnibus news program Edwards used to host, chugs inevitably along, fact-checking the presidential debate, stepping out of the fray to report on increased respect for community colleges, retaining its stranglehold on those people who seek information in depth in the mornings -- people not unlike Edwards.
"It's still the best news program on radio," says Edwards, who listens regularly and used his debut hour on XM Satellite Radio on Oct. 4 to endorse his old show. "I said people should continue to listen to `Morning Edition' and then come over and listen to me after."
The dark promises that NPR listeners made over the firing -- to stop tuning in, to stop giving money -- appear not to have been kept, because, really, where else are they going to go? "News" radio, with its embarrassment of traffic reports and advertisements? The "Today" show?
"It's way too early to talk about either ratings or fundraising impact," cautions Torey Malatia, general manager of WBEZ-FM 91.5, the Chicago public radio outlet. At the same time, though, there's no longer the rush of outrage the station felt during the spring pledge drive, when Malatia and "This American Life" host Ira Glass read the NPR press release announcing Edwards' departure on the air, while serving as pledge hosts.
"The amount of mail and the amount of concerned listeners seems to have dropped," Malatia says. "My guess is it won't have an impact on our upcoming November drive."
The ratings for "Morning Edition" this past spring -- roughly one month with Bob, two months without -- stood at 12.87 million weekly listeners, according to NPR. The numbers for the previous spring were only a touch higher, at 13.07 million, a difference that seems less likely due to the Edwards departure than to the invasion of Iraq goosing public interest in all news media in spring 2003. Summer ratings are not available yet, a spokeswoman said.
Although the show has been undergoing concerted review by an NPR-gathered committee, it seems to be proving bigger than the host or, in the current configuration, hosts.
Edwards was as much a star as anybody in public radio, fronting a program that more or less doubled Howard Stern's weekly audience. "I was killing Howard," he says, before correcting himself and referring to "Morning Edition" as "we."
But he wasn't Katie Couric, the kind of star whose personality was the essence of the show. What people really tune to "Morning Edition" for is the detailed reporting and analysis, the feeling of being treated as if you have both a brain and an attention span.
"The format is designed to let the content rule the day," says Michael Harrison, publisher of Talkers magazine, which chronicles talk radio.
The show's hosts "are truly presenters, and Edwards did it so well that he built up a following for not getting in the way of the content. It's kind of ironic that he became a star and people liked him for not imposing on them."
He's a bit more imposing on XM, the more popular of the two satellite radio outfits vying to persuade America to pay $10 to $13 a month for a plethora of music and talk channels.
The category got a big boost recently when rival Sirius announced it had lured Howard Stern away from broadcast radio beginning in 2006 with a five-year contract said to be worth $100 million a year (a seemingly ridiculous number that may, we should allow, be part of the publicity campaign).
"I wish I was his agent -- forget Howard Stern," Edwards says. "I'm still making public-radio money."
"The Bob Edwards Show" is nearly all the host and his interview subjects, at least in the early going. He has talked to people ranging from Walter Cronkite to up-and-coming singer-songwriter Tift Merritt.
`Fun again'
"Radio is fun again," Edwards says. Why? "The fact that it's something new in a shop that is relatively new. The fact that everyone here is just so radio. The fact that I got to pick this little staff of eight. They're all old friends from public radio," including Tish Valva, a former producer of Chicago Public Radio's "Eight Forty-Eight" magazine show.
He's says he'd like to add "essayists and the like" and reporting done by independent producers -- not unlike another morning show -- but in due time.
For now, it's Edwards and the guests, generally four per hour. It mostly works, although, even with the first interview relating to the news, a listener can feel the absence of that firm grounding that newscasts and a stable of correspondents give a show.
In his departure from NPR, there was much whispered criticism of Edwards' interviewing style, the primary suggestion being that he was often just reading questions from a list rather than interacting.
But there are plenty of listeners who appreciate an interviewer who knows how to ask a question and then stop asking the question, rather than forcing an illusion of conversation.
Staying out of your subject's way is a rare skill, and Edwards continues to employ it to great effect on XM.
"How hip is writing a book about hip?" he asked a guest, author John Leland.
"It's the squarest thing you can do," Leland replied.
While Edwards hasn't exactly become Howard Stern, the fledgling XM, unregulated by the Federal Communications Commission, does allow him the freedom to quote Lyndon Johnson's profanities in an interview about the former president.
And then there's the dog. After a talk with an expert on New York dogs in a show last week, he told the story of his own pooch, Sam. "My wife and I got the dog when I was canned from doing an early, early, early morning show on NPR," he said, because suddenly he had hours more conducive to keeping a pet.
At the moment he was speaking, he added, Sam was off visiting, "trying the patience of my mother-in-law. So I guess he's sort of my surrogate."
Edwards didn't have the freedom to be quite so personal at "Morning Edition." There, the two "interim hosts" have been doing work that most in the public radio community seem happy with, according to a recent article in the public-broadcasting-specific Current magazine.
But, perhaps by design, the two haven't made a huge mark. I didn't have to look hard to find one dedicated "Morning Edition" listener who didn't know the twosome's names until I reminded her.
"Morning Edition" management insists the decision to keep on Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne as permanent hosts has not been made. But at a recent program directors conference, says WBEZ's Malatia, the assumption among those gathered was that it's only a matter of time.
Certainly, in an interview, executive producer Ellen McDonnell and NPR senior programming vice president Jay Kernis sound thrilled with their work. In contrast to Edwards, Inskeep and Montagne are often out of the studio, reporting.
"Bob was very, very successful," Kernis says, "but his model was very much as studio anchor."
More flexibility
And they stress that, in McDonnell's words, "the show is much more flexible."
To land a remarkable Bob Dylan interview that aired last week, Inskeep had to endure being stood up twice.
But because there's a co-host, McDonnell was able to ask him to go ahead and meet Dylan, finally, in the evening, very long into Inskeep's workday, and then take the next day off.
There are more frequent updates of stories, especially for West Coast stations.
The other big change is that Inskeep hosts out of the main studios in Washington, while Montagne is at NPR West, in Los Angeles.
This, executives say, is a logistical challenge but gives the show different energy and an extra-beltway perspective.
While a number of program directors told Current they're big fans of the current hosts, Malatia, although an admirer of Montagne and Inskeep, is more measured about the overall effect.
"The new hosts are fine. Bob was fine," he says.
"There's no particular advantage to the change from Bob to Steve and Renee, and I think the two-city thing has minimum interest and impact.
The fact that the transition has been relatively easy, despite the April uproar, "does deflate some of the argument that was used in saying there's a need to make a change," Malatia says.
But sometimes, in some ways, a split can produce a net gain. Out of the 1990s breakup of the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo came two great rock groups, Wilco and Son Volt.
And now there's "Morning Edition," still, plus a way for those who want a whole lot of Bob Edwards to get it.
thanks for posting this swimpy. i would have missed the article if you hadn't.
i heard the bob dylan interview and didn't consider it to be so much of a "coup" considering dylan did a victoria's secret ad, and he recently was on the cover of Time. he was promoting his book...
yes, terri gross is doing the book tour too-- i like her interview with bill o'reilly-- eeesh. scott simon interviewed her as well.
thanks again... i appreciate it.
