Genre | News, analysis, commentary, interviews, special features |
---|---|
Running time | c. 105 min |
Country of origin | United States |
Language(s) | English |
Syndicates | National Public Radio (NPR) |
Hosted by |
Scott Simon (Saturdays) Lulu Garcia-Navarro (Sundays) |
Recording studio | Washington, D.C. |
Original release | Saturday: November 2, 1985 Sunday: January 11, 1987 – present |
Audio format | Stereophonic |
Opening theme | B.J. Leiderman (composer) |
Website |
Weekend Edition Saturday Weekend Edition Sunday |
Weekend Edition is the name given to a set of American radio news magazines produced and distributed by National Public Radio (NPR). It is the weekend counterpart to Morning Edition. It consists of Weekend Edition Saturday and Weekend Edition Sunday, each of which airs for two hours, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time, with refeeds until 2 p.m. Weekend Edition Saturday is hosted by Scott Simon, while Weekend Edition Sunday has been hosted by Lulu Garcia-Navarro since January 8, 2017.
The programs feature longer stories than most NPR news magazines and more arts and culture stories. On Saturdays the program featured an exchange between the program's host and the late commentator, Daniel Schorr, during which they discussed the events of the past week. Until February 10, 2008, on Sundays the show broadcast "Voices in the News", an audio montage of sound clips from the week's events. Sundays continue to have the "Puzzle" game with New York Times crossword puzzle editor Will Shortz. The puzzle segment usually airs approximately 40 min past the start of the first hour of the program.
Weekday sibling Morning Edition breaks up each hour into five segments, none more than nine minutes long; Weekend Edition uses only three segments per hour, accommodating longer stories than could be allowed on Morning Edition.
Weekend Edition begins with a sixty-second billboard. Both Simon and Garcia-Navarro use the billboard as a general discussion about what's coming up in the hour, infused with soundbites from selected stories. A standard five-minute NPR newscast follows, until six past the hour. A thirty-second music bed follows the newscast, allowing local stations an opportunity to promote programming or local news/weather/traffic.
Segment A begins at 6:30 past the hour (duration 11:29). It is here that the most important news of the day is placed. Regular features (such as, before his death, Daniel Schorr's weekly news wrap-up) appear in this segment. At eighteen minutes past the hour, a two-minute station break starts. The first minute is a music bed solely for use of the member stations. The second minute, from nineteen to twenty past, is a "headlines" segment in which the NPR newscaster on staff that morning recaps the major stories of the hour. Some stations decide to use the entire two minutes for local purposes, taking the opportunity to deliver their own headlines, underwriting or events calendars.