We All Scream for Ice Cream!

By Annmarie Dean / Artwork by Steve Karosik

One thing that’s a dead giveaway that summertime has finally arrived is ice cream!  Whether you are a hard ice cream fan or a frozen custard aficionado, it’s safe to say that everyone has their go-to cone that they can’t wait to order once the weather breaks.  We had a little fun with PBS, NPR and WNED|WBFO inspired ice cream flavors.  Thank you to the staff for their awesome submissions!

Digital content gems from NPR & PBS

By Steve Karosik

Our content providers such as NPR & PBS give you plenty of entertainment and information on the radio and television airwaves, but here’s some great resources on their websites and mobile apps that you may not know about:

Inauguration Day Coverage on WBFO-FM 88.7

By Megan Wagner

WBFO-FM 88.7 will carry a variety of in-depth Inauguration Day coverage on Monday, Jan. 21.

Tune in for live updates of Inauguration Day preparation during Morning Edition from 5 – 10 a.m.

From 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., WBFO-FM 88.7 will provide live special coverage from NPR News. Steve Inskeep and Audie Cornish will host from the U.S. Capitol Building, where the swearing-in ceremony will take place. NPR will also have reporters amongst the crowd on the National Mall and along the parade route.

Coverage continues from 2 – 4 p.m. with NPR’s Neal Conan hosting and taking listener phone calls from 4 – 6 p.m. during All Things Considered.

WBFO-FM 88.7 will also air a one-hour NPR News Special: Inauguration 2013 Monday evening at 7 p.m.

Why NPR Music is Awesome

By Annmarie Dean

I really like NPR. Like a lot. And yes, I started listening to NPR before I landed a job at one of its member stations. I even read their blogs religiously; my personal favorite is The Salt (I learned all about the “chocolate” persimmon this week!).  Along with a love of all things NPR and food, there is also a huge spot in my heart that is reserved for music. I really enjoy new music from some of my favorite artists and being able to listen to full previews of new albums makes NPR’s First Listen a beautiful thing.

Election Day Coverage

Tune in to WNED-TV tonight starting at 8 p.m. as Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff co-anchor live gavel-to-gavel coverage of election results on PBS NewsHour.

Also, flip the dial to WBFO-FM 88.7 for full election night coverage from NPR and our local news team. Coverage begins at 8 p.m. this evening for full Election 2012 results.

Wallenda’s Wire Walk

By Annmarie Dean

Ever since I was a little girl, my mother would tell us one of her favorite childhood stories. While vacationing in the Adirondacks in 1963, my grandparents took their children to The Enchanted Forest theme park to see The Flying Wallendas. After performing, as my mom says, “they wanted me on their laps for a picture!” I’m sure they invited all their fans to do this and she wasn’t just hand-picked from the crowd, but I’ll let her have her moment. So there sits my four-year-old mother, in the laps of arguably the most famous and talented circus family in the world, grinning from ear to ear. Flash forward almost 50 years and there sits my mother, my brother and I covering our gaping mouths while holding our bated breath as we watch Nik Wallenda crossing the mighty Niagara Falls on 2-inch thick steel wire.

And the two shall become one.

By Megan Wagner

It’s been quite an exciting week here at WNED!  In case you didn’t hear, we welcomed WBFO 88.7 FM to our family of public media. WBFO and AM 970 will now be simulcasting their broadcasts and bring you the best in public broadcasting and local journalism.

Factoid Friday: Fact #4

By Annmarie Dean

It’s Friday! While Friday signifies the beginning of the weekend, it also means that it is time for your weekly dose of fun facts pertaining to WNED.

Did you know that WNED has produced 17 productions for national broadcast on PBS? This past month, “Underground Railroad: The William Still Story” premiered on PBS. Other national productions include: “The War of 1812,” “Chautauqua: An American Narrative,” and “Frank Lloyd Wright’s Buffalo.” Our productions department continues to work tirelessly to bring new and interesting documentaries to the national spotlight.

We are also very lucky to have had our news stories from WNED-AM 970 featured numerous times on NPR for the whole country to hear. For many years, Classical 94.5/WNED-FM would broadcast a 13-part classical music series entitled “Music from Chautauqua.” The series was distributed nationally through Public Radio International and showcased orchestral performances from the Chautauqua Institution.

Factoid Friday: Alphabet Soup

By Annmarie Dean

We have a lot of talented people who work for WNED and a healthy handful of those people have previously worked for NPR and PBS member stations; one person has even worked for PBS headquarters in Arlington, Va. How cool is that?! For this week’s Factoid Friday, I’ve compiled a list of those people we’ve been lucky enough to steal away from other member stations.

Let’s Talk Green

By Annmarie Dean

Money, money, money, money, money sings The O’Jays. I think this song should be Michelle Singletary’s theme music. The personal finance guru will be taping an upcoming PBS special on Saturday, Oct. 22 from 1-4 p.m. in our big studio with a live audience (that you can be part of!) The program Spend Well, Live Rich with Michelle Singletary is slated to air on December 5 on WNED-TV.

A Ray of Light for America’s Darkest Day

By Megan Wagner

September 11, 2001. A day which we will all vividly remember where we were and what we were doing.  As a 20-year-old college sophomore, I awoke at 8:45 a.m. to begin my Tuesday classes. After turning on my laptop and pouring myself a bowl of cereal, I flipped on the TV to watch the morning news and saw something out of the movie “Independence Day.”  It took everything I had to unglue myself from the TV and go to class. However, when I arrived, I found hundreds of my classmates crowded around the lobby TVs, watching the latest details unfold about the Pentagon and Pennsylvania attacks. America’s worse nightmare had come true - terrorism had hit our soil.

170 Million Americans…and counting.

By Megan Wagner

Imagine a world without Big Bird, Clifford or Antiques Roadshow.  Hard to comprehend, right?  These programs, and many more, have become so deeply ingrained into our culture and seem priceless – and all it costs you is less than a cup of coffee or a bus pass.

A marriage made in NPR heaven

By Megan Wagner

Ah marriage. The courtship, the engagement and then the joining of two people is always such a happy and momentous occasion. After months (or even years) of courtship, a couple makes the decision to take the next step.  Friday at WNED, we celebrated an exciting betrothing of our own – the engagement of WNED AM 970 to WBFO 88.7 FM.

The Tom Ashbrook Experience: All Along the Radio Tower

By: Annmarie Dean

On June 10^th, Tom Ashbrook, host of NPR’s “On Point,” made a pit stop in Buffalo to broadcast his show live. He then attended a luncheon right here in one of our studios. While this event was very exciting, what made it even more neat is the fact that WNED’s own Daniel Robison was featured as a guest on the program!

I got the chance to sit down with our Innovation Trail reporter to discuss his “On Point” experience.

In with the new

by Megan Wagner

Welcome to the first-ever blog from WNED!  Our team has been working very hard planning this project and we’re thrilled to share stories and insights of the entire WNED organization with our readers.