The Tavis Smiley Show

Last updated
The Tavis Smiley Show
Presented byTavis Smiley
Country of originUnited States
Production
Producer Tavis Smiley
Original release
ReleaseJanuary 5, 2004 (2004-01-05) 
December 13, 2017 (2017-12-13)

The Tavis Smiley Show was an American public broadcasting radio talk show.

Contents

Public Radio International

The Tavis Smiley Show was broadcast on Public Radio International (PRI). It was a one-hour weekly program featuring interviews with news makers, thought leaders and artists and seeks to bring diverse perspectives to the airwaves. It was produced by Smiley Radio Properties, Inc., in partnership with PRI [1] at Smiley's studio in Los Angeles, California. [2] The program ran two hours per week until October 2010 when the second hour became the sister program Smiley & West, co-hosted by longtime Smiley collaborator Dr. Cornel West. The show ended after thirteen years of broadcast in December 2017. [3]

History of radio show

The first version of The Tavis Smiley Show was on National Public Radio (NPR). It was broadcast daily from January 2002 to December 16, 2004, in Los Angeles, [4] when the host Tavis Smiley decided not to renew his contract with NPR. [5] Some of the reasons cited based on an article by Howard Kurtz for not renewing the contract were 1) Tavis Smiley wanted to tape his show a day in advance, and NPR did not agree; 2) against federal funding policies, Tavis Smiley wished to own the right to rebroadcast the show; and 3) Tavis Smiley appealed to have the budget for promoting the program significantly increased, and NPR did not have the budget to do so. [6]

The show was a news and opinion program focusing upon issues of race, diversity, and ethnicity and often featured guest speakers. It was an hour-long show.

The show was helped through a collaboration with various public radio stations. It was replaced on some radio stations by News & Notes which follows much the same format and topics. Many other radio stations replaced it with the short-lived NPR News with Tony Cox .

Notes

  1. About the PRI show at its official website Archived August 21, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  2. Profile of Tavis Smiley Archived July 14, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  3. Simpson, April (15 December 2017). "PRI terminates relationship with Tavis Smiley". Current. Retrieved 2018-03-26.
  4. "Official website of NPR show". Npr.org. 2004-12-16. Retrieved 2012-06-25.
  5. Statement of NPR and the African American Consortium regarding cancellation of show, November 29, 2004.
  6. Howard Kurtz (2005-01-17). "Broadcast All Over – Tavis Smiley's NPR Show Is History, but the Talk Lives On". The Washington Post . Retrieved 2012-06-25.

Related Research Articles

Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) is a public radio network for the state of Minnesota. With its three services, News & Information, YourClassical MPR and The Current, MPR operates a 46-station regional radio network in the upper Midwest.

<i>Science Friday</i> American radio program

Science Friday is a weekly call-in talk show that broadcasts each Friday on public radio stations, distributed by WNYC Studios, and carried on over 470 public radio stations. SciFri is hosted by science journalist Ira Flatow and was created and is produced by the Science Friday Initiative. The program is divided into two one-hour programs, with each hour ending with a complete sign-off. The focus of each program is news and information on science, nature, medicine, and technology. The show originated as the Friday episode of the daily call-in talk show Talk of the Nation, but was spun off as a series in its own right when Talk of the Nation was canceled in June 2013.

Morning Edition is an American radio news program produced and distributed by NPR. It airs weekday mornings and runs for two hours, and many stations repeat one or both hours. The show feeds live from 5:00 to 9:00 AM ET, with feeds and updates as required until noon. The show premiered on November 5, 1979; its weekend counterpart is Weekend Edition. Morning Edition and All Things Considered are among the highest rated public radio shows.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Public Radio International</span> American radio organization (1983–2019)

Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States.

<i>Day to Day</i> Defunct weekday National Public Radio program

Day to Day (D2D) was a one-hour weekday American radio newsmagazine distributed by National Public Radio (NPR), and produced by NPR in collaboration with Slate. Madeleine Brand, Alex Chadwick, and Alex Cohen served as hosts. Topics regularly covered by D2D included news, entertainment, politics and the arts; contributors included familiar NPR personalities, reporters from NPR member stations, writers for Slate, and reporters from Marketplace, a show produced by American Public Media. D2D premiered on Monday, July 28, 2003, and fed to stations from noon ET with updates through 4:00 p.m. ET. It was the fastest growing program in NPR's history.

Radio comedy, or comedic radio programming, is a radio broadcast that may involve variety show, sitcom elements, sketches, and various types of comedy found in other media. It may also include more surreal or fantastic elements, as these can be conveyed on a small budget with just a few sound effects or some simple dialogue. Radio comedy began in the United States in 1930, based on the fact that as most United Kingdom music hall comedians such as Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel progressed to silent films, they moved to Hollywood and fed the radio comedy field. Another British music hall comic, George Formby, stayed in the British movie industry, and in 1940 joined the Entertainments National Service Association to entertain British World War II troops. UK radio comedy therefore started later, in the 1950s.

KPCC – branded LAist89.3 – is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Pasadena, California, primarily serving Greater Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley. KPCC also reaches much of Santa Barbara, Ventura County, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley, and extends throughout Southern California with five low-power broadcast relay stations and three full-power repeaters. Owned by Pasadena City College and operated by the American Public Media Group via Southern California Public Radio, KPCC broadcasts a mix of public radio and news, and is an owned-and-operated station for American Public Media; in addition to serving as an affiliate for NPR and Public Radio Exchange; and is the radio home for Sandra Tsing Loh and Larry Mantle. Besides a standard analog transmission, KPCC broadcasts over two HD Radio channels, and is available online. The studios are located in Pasadena, while the station transmitter is on Mount Wilson. It is one of two full NPR members in the Los Angeles area; Santa Monica-based KCRW is the other.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WBEZ</span> Public radio station in Chicago

WBEZ – branded WBEZ 91.5 – is a non-commercial educational radio station licensed to Chicago, Illinois, and primarily serving the tri-state region of the Chicago metropolitan area. It is owned by Chicago Public Media and is financed by listener contributions, corporate underwriting and some government funding. WBEZ is affiliated with both National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). It also broadcasts content from American Public Media and the BBC World Service. It produces several nationally syndicated shows for public radio stations, including documentary program This American Life, and co-produces news and politics quiz program, Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! with NPR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tavis Smiley</span> Talk show host and author

Tavis Smiley is an American talk show host and author. Smiley was born in Gulfport, Mississippi, and grew up in Bunker Hill, Indiana. After attending Indiana University, he worked during the late 1980s as an aide to Tom Bradley, the mayor of Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KCRW</span> Public radio station in Santa Monica, California

KCRW is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programming from NPR and other affiliates. A network of repeaters and broadcast translators, as well as internet radio, allows the station to serve the Greater Los Angeles area and other communities in Southern California. The station's main transmitter is located in Los Angeles's Laurel Canyon district, adjacent to Mulholland Drive at the end of Briarcrest Road, and broadcasts in the HD radio format. It is one of two full NPR members in the Los Angeles area; Pasadena-based KPCC is the other.

<i>Marketplace</i> (radio program) American radio program

Marketplace is an American radio program that focuses on business, the economy, and events that influence them. The program was first broadcast on January 2, 1989. Hosted by Kai Ryssdal since 2005, the show is produced and distributed by American Public Media. Marketplace is produced in Los Angeles with bureaus in New York, Washington, D.C., Portland, Baltimore, London, and Shanghai. It won a Peabody Award in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Riley (American radio host)</span> American journalist and commentator (born 1951)

Mark Riley is an American journalist and commentator. He is the former host/presenter of WWRL 1600 AM's morning drive talk program. He hosted a four-hour evening news, interview, comment, and culture program, "The Air Americans," on the now-defunct liberal talk radio network Air America Radio. His work at Air America also included co-hosting the network's morning-drive show, "Morning Sedition" with stand-up comic Marc Maron.

<i>Here and Now</i> (Boston) American public radio magazine program

Here and Now is a public radio magazine program produced by NPR and WBUR-FM in Boston and distributed across the United States by NPR to over 450 stations, with an estimated 5 million weekly listeners.

WESU is a college/community non-commercial FM radio station owned by Wesleyan University and licensed to Middletown, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KBLA</span> Radio station in Santa Monica, California

KBLA is a broadcast radio station in the United States. Licensed to Santa Monica, California, KBLA serves the Greater Los Angeles area. The station is owned by Multicultural Broadcasting, through licensee Multicultural Radio Broadcasting Licensee, LLC, and operated by pending owner Tavis Smiley with an urban/progressive talk format.

Michele R. McPhee is an American author, talk radio host, and five-time Emmy nominated investigative journalist from Boston. McPhee also worked as columnist and correspondent to the Boston Herald, was the New England reporter for ABC News, and was a general assignment reporter with the television station WCVB. She now lives in Los Angeles writing screenplays, most recently for Showtime's City on a Hill, and has a HBO series in development based on her Newsweek cover story.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ed Gordon (journalist)</span> American television journalist (born 1960)

Edward Lansing Gordon III is an American television journalist known for his association with BET over four different decades. A native of Detroit, Ed Gordon is the son of an Olympic athlete also named Ed Gordon. The younger Gordon was BET's main news anchor from 1988 to 1996 and again from 2000 to 2001 before hosting the interview show BET Tonight from 2001 to 2002 and another interview show, Weekly with Ed Gordon, from 2010 to 2011.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NPR</span> American nonprofit media organization

National Public Radio is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of more than 1,000 public radio stations in the United States. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress.

Tony Cox is an American radio and television journalist who is host of the syndicated radio talk show UpFront with Tony Cox and used to be host of News & Notes on National Public Radio (NPR).