Weekend Edition

Weekend Edition is a set of American radio news magazine programs produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to the NPR radio program Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday, each of which airs for two hours, from 8:00 AM to 10:00 a.m. Eastern time, with refeeds until 2:00 p.m. Weekend Edition Saturday is hosted by Scott Simon, while Weekend Edition Sunday has been hosted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro since January 8, 2017.

Weekend Edition
GenreNews, analysis, commentary, interviews, special features
Running timec. 105 min
Country of originUnited States
Language(s)English
SyndicatesNational Public Radio (NPR)
Hosted byScott Simon
(Saturdays)
Lulu Garcia-Navarro (Sundays)
Recording studioWashington, D.C.
Original releaseSaturday: November 2, 1985
Sunday: January 18, 1987 – present
Audio formatStereophonic
Opening themeB.J. Leiderman[1] (composer)
WebsiteWeekend Edition Saturday
Weekend Edition Sunday

The programs feature longer stories than most NPR news magazines and more arts and culture stories. On Saturdays the program featured an exchange between the program's host and commentator, Daniel Schorr, during which they discussed the events of the past week. Until February 10, 2008, on Sundays the show broadcast Voices in the News, an audio montage of sound clips from the week's events. Sundays continue to have the "Puzzle" game with New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz. The puzzle segment usually airs approximately 40 minutes past the start of the second hour of the program.

Format

Weekday sibling Morning Edition breaks up each hour into five segments, none more than twelve minutes long; Weekend Edition uses only three segments per hour, accommodating longer stories than Morning Edition typically accommodates.

Weekend Edition begins with a sixty-second billboard. Both Simon and Garcia-Navarro use the billboard as a general discussion about what's coming up in the hour, infused with soundbites from selected stories. A standard five-minute NPR newscast follows, until six past the hour. A thirty-second music bed follows the newscast, allowing local stations an opportunity to promote programming or local news/weather/traffic.

Segment A begins at 6:30 past the hour (duration 11:29). The most important news of the day is placed here. Regular features (such as, before his death, Daniel Schorr's weekly news wrap-up) appear in this segment. At eighteen minutes past the hour, a two-minute station break starts. The first minute is a music bed solely for use of the member stations. The second minute, from nineteen to twenty past, is a "headlines" segment in which the NPR newscaster on staff that morning recaps the major stories of the hour. Some stations decide to use the entire two minutes for local purposes, taking the opportunity to deliver their own headlines, underwriting or events calendars.

At twenty past the hour, segment B begins, running 14:19 in length. NPR offers local stations a cutaway from the national feed at 34:20 past the hour. The cutaway is identified by the host when he or she says, "You're listening to Weekend Edition from NPR News". For stations that opt to stay with the national feed, a short interview or commentary piece is delivered, running 2:59 in length. Another two-minute station break, following the same music bed/headlines format as the first, ensues.

Segment C, the longest segment of the hour, starts at 40:00 after the hour and runs for seventeen minutes, forty-nine seconds. Weekend Edition Saturday usually slots musical performances, arts stories or interviews in segment C. Weekend Edition Sunday uses the time for its weekly puzzle segment with Will Shortz, and interviews and light features. At the end of the segment, the host credits theme song composer B.J. Leiderman and signs off for the hour. Segment C is followed by a forty-second funding credit announcement, and then ninety seconds of music.

Hosts

References
  1. "BJ Leiderman (NPR biography)". NPR. Retrieved 2007-04-25.
  2. "NPR Hosting News: Michele Norris Takes on Expanded New Role for NPR, Audie Cornish Appointed Co-Host of 'All Things Considered', Rachel Martin Named to 'Weekend Edition Sunday'" (Press release). NPR News. Archived from the original on 3 January 2013. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
  3. "NPR: Rachel Martin hosts Weekend Edition Sunday". The Washington Times. Associated Press. 8 December 2011. Retrieved 2012-01-07.
  4. "Lulu Garcia-Navarro (biography)". NPR. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
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