Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Best of Brisith Unsigned Ends Production

We regret to inform our listeners and partner stations that Best of British Unsigned ended its long run at the end of this month. This was due to a lack of sponsorship for the program, and a desire by the host, Matt Graveling, to pursue other personal endeavors. We are sorry to lose this program as part of our independent music lineup. We wish Matt the very best!

In its place, we are pleased to announce the addition of The Independent Music Show. If you like such programs on GCR2 as The Deuce, IMP Indie Mania, and The Appetizer, you're sure to enjoy this new offering to the GCR2 schedule.

As always, your feedback regarding these changes is always welcome!

Tuesday, January 9, 2018

More Unexpected Changes on GCR1

Well, 2018 is turning out to be a year of programming changes beyond our control! Again, we had no say in the following change.

We were not notified in writing that United Nations Radio has chosen to discontinue its daily ten minute newscasts. UN Daily News has been on the air for many, many years, and we've been proud to carry it on GCR. We're sorry to see this newscast go away, but, we will continue to offer UN News in Brief on weekday afternoons.

In turn, this will force some changes during the weekday 9 AM Eastern/6 AM Pacific hour. We will continue to air Feature Story News at the top of the hour. At 9:05, we are adding a new daily program, VOA Asia. This is a 25 minute news magazine covering stories of interest from across the Asian continent. In all honesty, I was regretting that I did not have room for this program Monday to Friday, especially with the recent demise of Asia Calling. So, in my opinion, this has worked out quite nicely. The news bulletin from All India Radio will now air at the bottom of the hour. The fifteen minute newscast from DW will be dropped. We will continue to offer DW's full half hour newscast on weekdays at 5:30 PM Eastern/2:30 PM Pacific.


The weekly programs from UN Radio, "UN and Africa" and "UN Gender Focus" have also been discontinued. In their place, we will now present the weekly UN Radio Interview Podcast on Saturday afternoons at 12:30 PM Eastern.

Another change has taken place on Wednesday nights. The Monitor has ended its nearly 14 year run. There is a chance it will resume production later this year, and we would seriously consider reinstating the program if and when this occurs. We have replaced The Monitor with The Global Reserch News Hour. We think this program will appeal to those who like deeper, investigative reporting and analysis.

As always, sincere apologies for the sudden change. Again, it was out of our hands. Hopefully, everyone will enjoy the new lineup.

Jason Longwell
GCR Station Manager

Saturday, January 6, 2018

GCR2 Classical Programming Update

Those who follow this blog regularly know that the final episode of Keys to Music went out over GCR2 on January 3rd. After considering several options, I have decided to replace it with a series which, though no longer in production, remains an outstanding series in Classical music radio.

When GCR was still Geneva Community Radio, we aired the outstanding series Compact Discoveries With Fred Flaxman. Each program featured a variety of Classical recordings, tied together by one common theme.

Sadly, Fred Flaxman passed away on August 29th, 2015, at the age of 75. Here is a link to an obituary written by his daughter, Tana Flaxman Jencks, which appeared on Current.org.
https://current.org/2015/11/fred-flaxman-longtime-programmer-and-station-leader-dies-at-75/

It was Tana herself who notified me in writing of her father's passing. At that time, she told me that he would want me to continue to air his shows posthumously.

As a tribute to Fred's long legacy in Public Broadcasting, I am pleased to bring Compact Discoveries to Global Community Radio, and thus to a wider audience. With 253 episodes available, we will be able to present this series for some time to come, and are happy to do so. The show will air Wednesdays at 8 AM Eastern.

Classics for Kids, which aired immediately after Keys to Music, will move to Fridays at 8:59 AM, right before DW Concert Hour.

Speaking of Friday, there's another change to our Classical line up that day. We are airing a set of seasonal program series during the 8 o'clock hour on Fridays. Center Stage From Wolf Trap will be back with a new six month series starting in July. We are now airing a new series, Live From the Grand Teton Music Festival. This is a thirteen week series. When it concludes its run on March 30th, we will then present Concerts From the Library of Congress. which is another thirteen week series, running from April 6th thru June 29th, respectively.

I hope you all enjoy the new Classical offerings on GCR2. As always, your feedback is both welcomed and appreciated.

Jason Longwell
GCR Station Manager