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
