As has been the case for more than 75 years, WRTI is an important cornerstone of the City of Philadelphia’s classical music and jazz ecosystem. Temple University has been the home of WRTI since 1948 and has made significant direct and indirect contributions to it.
To ensure that WRTI is best positioned for long-term success moving forward, the station has made the difficult decision to make some personnel and programming changes. WRTI will no longer air NPR newscasts, From the Top or Jazz Night in America, but will continue to be a leader in classical and jazz music locally and nationally.
These changes allow WRTI to focus on what it does best, which is providing an excellent broadcast service to the city and region while also serving as an active partner to artists, educators, presenters, and others who are committed to uplifting jazz and classical music in our community.
Below are the complete details on our programming changes effective October 1st.
Jazz Night in America (Sundays 8pm), From the Top (Saturdays 7am, Mondays 9pm HD2) and NPR Newscasts will no longer air on WRTI. WRTI remains a strong content partner and NPR Network member station with a dedicated focus on music. Additionally, The Standard (Sundays 9pm-midnight) has been removed from the lineup.
Saturday mornings will include an additional hour of Performance Today Weekend, including the much-loved listener favorite Piano Puzzler. Monday nights at 9pm on HD2, we’ll explore the full range of the organ on Pipedreams with longtime host Michael Barone.
Jazz listeners will now enjoy Sunday Rotation from 8pm to midnight on Sundays. It will feature WRTI’s talented jazz hosts Nicole Sweeney, Julian Booker and our editorial team presenting specially curated playlists, exclusive live performances, and select in-studio recordings. Sunday Rotation is also the space WRTI will broadcast expanded radio editions of our original podcast, The Late Set, including conversations with great artists.
We’re also expanding Evening Jazz weeknights to 10pm and adding an hour to Late Evening Jazz. WRTI is making significant progress toward localizing our jazz service full-time during the day on HD2 and the all-jazz stream, which currently airs syndicated programming during daytime hours. We hope to share our progress with you early next year.
These programming decisions allow WRTI to maximize the deployment of limited resources for current service and future innovations. We are leaner, but we remain focused on delivering impactful and relevant programming with our community while being responsible stewards of support we receive from members.
For more information, see the updated classical and jazz schedules at WRTI.org.
You can also contact us with classical music comments or questions here. Jazz feedback and questions can be submitted here.