AUSTIN, Texas – Dec. 22, 2015 – KUT 90.5, Austin’s NPR station, is bringing four new-to-public-radio shows to the Austin airwaves next month.
“On Story,” from the Austin Film Festival and Public Radio International (PRI); “Reveal,” from the Center for Investigative Reporting and Public Radio Exchange (PRX); and “FreakonomicsRadio” and “The New Yorker Radio Hour” – both from WNYC in New York – join the KUT schedule beginning Saturday, Jan. 9 2016.
“Freakonomics Radio” has grown out of best-selling books, a podcast, radio segments and specials into a full-fledged weekly show that ferrets out connections between seemingly unrelated things. The one-hour show will air at 1 p.m. Saturdays.
“Freakonomics Radio” explores the riddles of everyday life and the weird wrinkles of human nature—from cheating and crime to parenting and sports—using the tools of economics to explore real-world behavior. Host Stephen J. Dubner discovers the hidden side of everything in interviews with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, social scientists and entrepreneurs — along with his “Freakonomics” co-author Steve Levitt.
Austin Film Festival’s “On Story,” the Lone Star EMMY award-winning television series hosted by PBS affiliates across the nation, is coming to public radio as a one-hour program. “On Story” content is recorded live at the Austin Film Festival and Conference, as well as their year-round events. Pilots of the show aired monthly on KUT in 2015. The one-hour show will air at 9 p.m. Saturdays.
Season one of “On Story” from PRI will showcase the screenwriters and directors behind “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” “Deadwood,” “True Detective,” “House of Cards,” “Freaks and Geeks,” “Star Wars,” “Silence of the Lambs,” “12 Years a Slave” and more. KUT’s Director Broadcast and Content, Hawk Mendenhall worked with Austin Film Festival throughout 2015 to turn the TV and podcast content into a radio-friendly format for KUT and other public radio stations around the country.
“The New Yorker Radio Hour,” gives “The New Yorker” a voice on public radio for the first time. On the show, “The New Yorker” Editor David Remnick is joined by the magazine’s award-winning writers in a weekly hour of radio that will both delight and inform. The show will feature a mix of profiles, storytelling and insightful conversations about the issues that matter, plus an occasional blast of comic genius from the magazine’s legendary “Shouts and Murmurs” page. “The New Yorker Radio Hour,” co-produced with WNYC, will air at 8 p.m. Sundays beginning Jan. 10.
“Reveal,” the Peabody Award-winning investigative journalism program from The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and PRX, will air as a weekly show on KUT at 9 p.m. Wednesdays beginning Jan. 13, 2016. KUT aired “Reveal” as a monthly pilot program in 2015.
The hour-long show – the first-ever weekly investigative journalism radio show – presents original work from CIR’s team along with various partners, including public radio stations and producers, as well as web sites, journalism centers and reporters from around the world.
“American Routes” will be dropped from the KUT schedule as will repeats of “On Being,” “Radiolab” and “The TED Radio Hour.”
Current KUT programs that will air at new times include: “Bullseye with Jesse Thorn” (8 p.m. Saturdays), “The Moth Radio Hour” (9 p.m. Sundays), “Selected Shorts” (10 p.m. Sundays), “On Being” (1 p.m. Sundays) and “The Splendid Table” (2 p.m. Sundays). KUT will air an additional hour of “BBC World Service” Sundays at 6 a.m.
About KUT
KUT 90.5, Austin's NPR station, delivers in-depth stories by and about people in Austin, for Austin, with the highest journalistic standards from a variety of thoughtful perspectives. A founding member of NPR, KUT News has won more than 100 state, national and international awards for journalistic excellence. “Texas Standard,” KUT’s one-hour daily news program heard on 23 public radio stations across the state, offers crisp, up-to-the-moment coverage of politics, lifestyle, the environment, technology, innovation and business — from a Texas perspective.
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Contact: Erin Geisler, KUT Public Radio, (512) 475-8071