Wisconsin Public Radio has dropped its longtime association with the Beethoven Network in favor of American Public Media’s Classical 24 for evening and overnight programming.
Classical 24 , produced at Minnesota Public Radio, is now heard on WPR’s News and Classical Music network from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. The change was effective Monday, Jan. 20.
The syndicated “Exploring Music with Bill McGlaughlin,” which previously aired on the network at 8 p.m., has moved to WPR’s HD2 Classical network. The HD2 network had already carried Classical 24 for most of its schedule.
In explaining the reasoning for the change, WPR touted Classical 24’s live hosts versus the Beethoven Network’s voice tracks. Classical 24 is also formatted to allow WPR to add NPR hourly newscasts to the late night schedule.
The change creates a de facto overnight simulcast of the same Classical programming on two stations in Duluth-Superior, since Classical 24 is already heard on MPR’s WSCD/92.9 (Duluth) for many of the same hours it’s now carried on WPR’s WSSU/88.5 (Superior). Both stations transmit from the Duluth antenna farm.
The change nearly doubles the amount of live duplication among Twin Ports public radio stations to approximately 96 hours per week. That figure does not include separate weekday versions of Morning Edition and All Things Considered heard simultaneously on WSSU and MPR’s WSCN/100.5 (Cloquet-Duluth).