Changes aim to revitalize NPR's 'Morning Edition'

By Marc Fisher
The Washington Post

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WASHINGTON — At the end of this month, millions of Americans will have to find a new way to ease into the day, as the soothing baritone of Bob Edwards, the only host in the 25-year history of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," disappears from the anchor desk.

When NPR announced last month that it was removing Edwards from the helm of its most popular program, the network explained the decision in — to many listeners' ears — uncharacteristically corporate language. Jay Kernis, senior vice president for programming, said the change stemmed from "a wide-ranging assessment of our core programs to ensure that they will meet the challenges of the new era." The new anchors he has been adding to NPR news programs, Kernis said, bring "wide, fresh experience as NPR producers and correspondents in the field."

Listeners and public radio station executives alike demanded to know what all that verbiage really meant. Many inside the network said its managers had concluded that Edwards was too studio-bound, too much the announcer rather than the reporter. An NPR executive who declined to be quoted by name because he will continue to work with Edwards said the host "didn't have the pace and the engagement with reporters in the field that we are looking for."

But to listeners who recalled Edwards' gentle interviews with newsmakers of all walks, that explanation rang hollow.

"Since 'Morning Edition's' audience has more than doubled in the last decade and I've heard not one member complain about Bob's on-air sound, I stand in utter amazement that this was the initial reason given," Jim King, director of radio at WVXU in Cincinnati, wrote to his listeners. "... In my mind, it makes absolutely no sense to take the man, the voice, the identity of NPR's most popular program and usher him out of the anchor's chair."

At other stations, the move was greeted as a sign that NPR would be quicker to respond to breaking news, giving the morning program a sharper, faster feel than Edwards' deliberate calm projected.

Still other station managers said the change, like the two new hosts on "All Things Considered," NPR's evening news show, would appeal to younger listeners.

But "Morning Edition" already reaches one of the younger audiences of any public radio program. The median age of its audience is 48, according to Arbitron ratings numbers analyzed by the Radio Research Consortium. That compares well with median audience ages of 51 for the Diane Rehm talk show, 52 for Garrison Keillor's "Prairie Home Companion," and 57 and older for classical music programs such as "Performance Today" and "From the Top." Even "This American Life," public radio's hip documentary hour of edgy stories, reaches an audience that is only one year younger than the one Edwards attracted.

In public radio, no less than on the commercial dial, the search for younger listeners is a priority. And with overall radio listening in dramatic decline in recent years, programmers are constantly searching for something new.
 
That led some station executives to conclude that Edwards' ouster was all about catering to young listeners. "The whole thing smacks of ageism," Alan Chartock, executive director of NPR affiliate WAMC in Albany, N.Y., wrote to his listeners. "NPR is searching for a younger demographic, but there are a lot of us who do not think that we have ended our productive years. I'll bet our children feel the same way about what their parents are contributing."

With listenership up strongly in the past few years, "Morning Edition" is not desperately searching for audience. Rather, NPR executives say they want their top-rated show — which market research gurus contend is the engine that drives public radio — to catch up with the Internet era and sound like it's being continuously updated throughout the morning.

Toward that end, watch for a dual-anchor format like that of "All Things Considered" to be instituted, with ever more of the morning program coming from NPR's new West Coast studios.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company