NPR changes key host
Bob Edwards, whose deep, smooth baritone has been the first voice that millions of National Public Radio listeners have awakened to for 25 years, is being replaced on “Morning Edition” at the end of April, the network announced Tuesday.
When asked about the change, Edwards said, “I wish there were no change.”
“I was there from Day One. That’s quite an investment,” he said. “I guess some of us have to be dragged off.”
Edwards, 56, has hosted the show since it premiered Nov. 5, 1979. It’s average weekly audience of 13 million is radio’s second largest, trailing only syndicated talk-show host Rush Limbaugh’s.
Both Edwards and the program have won numerous honors, including a 1999 George Foster Peabody Award, which cited “Morning Edition” as “two hours of daily in-depth news and entertainment expertly helmed by a man who embodies the essence of excellence in radio.” He’s also won kudos for stories about fetal-alcohol syndrome, a family’s museum to its slave ancestors and the 1995 “Republican Revolution” in Congress, for which he garnered the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for excellence in radio journalism.
“He’s done a great job for us, and this is not a reflection on his performance or anything,” NPR spokeswoman Laura Gross said, but instead is a chance to move the program into the future.
“This is part of the natural evolution of NPR shows,” said Ken Stern, the network’s executive vice president.
In the last decade, NPR’s weekly audience has more than doubled, to 22 million listeners, and Stern said the network was continually tweaking its programs to sustain and expand that growth, including adding new voices to its programs. But that has meant replacing some hosts listeners had grown to love.
In 2002, for example, NPR replaced Linda Wertheimer as co-host of its afternoon newsmagazine “All Things Considered” after 13 years, making her a senior correspondent contributing stories to multiple NPR shows. Her successor was Melissa Block, who at the time was a 40-year-old NPR correspondent.
Though Edwards said his next position was still in negotiation, NPR said he would similarly become a senior correspondent after his final show April 30.
“Bob is traveling a path many of our hosts have traveled before,” Stern said. “Bob’s not going anywhere.”
During his 25 years on “Morning Edition,” Edwards conducted an estimated 20,000 interviews, according to NPR. But none seemed as popular with listeners as his weekly four-minute conversations with former Dodger broadcaster Red Barber, every Friday from 1981 to 1992, on topics ranging from baseball to camellias.
Replacing Edwards is probably NPR’s biggest personnel change and challenge yet. The network’s own biographical sketch of the host opens with the line, “To many people, Bob Edwards is public radio.”
“People love Bob and have personal investments in Bob, so there is some possibility of reaction” to his being replaced, Stern said. He called the host “a family voice to many people” but said he was confident listeners would also warm to the new host, whom he said NPR expected to name before Edwards ended his hosting duties. In the interim, NPR’s Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne will co-host the program from Washington and NPR’s studios in Culver City, respectively.
Edwards, a Louisville native, said he would not miss waking up at 1 a.m. every weekday to host the show and having to be in bed by 6 p.m. On the other hand, he said his favorite part of the show had been its listeners.
“The audience is just fantastic,” he said. “It’s bright. They’re clued-in. They’re a challenge to work for. It’s an audience any of us in the business would love to have, and I’ve got ‘em. They just won’t be hearing me as often.”
Ruth Seymour, general manager of KCRW-FM (89.9), said listeners were attracted to the integrity and sincerity she thought Edwards conveyed. “Perhaps most of all, he’s a companion, and he takes you through everything that’s happened while you were sleeping.
For most NPR affiliates, “Morning Edition” is vital because it garners the most money during pledge drives. Seymour said she thought the show would continue to thrive after Edwards’ departure, as has “All Things Considered” after changes there.
“He has built something that will stand without him,” she said. “These programs have become not really vehicles for a personality, which is what any journalist would want.”
Edwards said Jay Kernis, NPR’s senior vice president of programming, called him into his office two weeks ago and said, “We’re making a change. We’re taking the program in a new direction.”
Before the show’s debut, NPR spent a year thoroughly researching what listeners wanted to hear in the morning, as a companion to the network’s original newsmagazine, “All Things Considered.” At the time, Edwards and Susan Stamberg were co-hosting that afternoon staple. But the pilot program that resulted was so unacceptable that NPR fired the hosts and producers and scrambled for a way to rescue a show that its affiliates were looking to air.
“It was very chatty and resembled a bad talk show in a small market. I was thrilled not to be part of such a disaster,” Edwards wrote in his 1993 book about Barber, “Fridays With Red.” But his NPR bosses came to him a week before the show’s premiere and asked him to take over hosting duties for the first month.
“Well, I wanted to be a team player. And 30 days didn’t sound so long, although it meant getting up each day at 1:30 a.m.,” Edwards wrote.
He decided to stick with it.
“ ‘Morning Edition’ allowed me to do something on my own,” he explained. “I had never taken many chances in my career, but here was the opportunity to be part of a program that might someday be worthy of comparison with NPR’s older magazine. Besides, I had sort of fathered the baby, and I couldn’t turn it over to a new dad.”