Texas Public Radio (TPR) is bringing its own brand of news, information and entertainment to Gonzales and its surrounding area. Having recently purchased KCTI -AM from Gonzales Communications, Inc., TPR will begin broadcasting on 1450 AM in November.
TPR engineers are working now on a “technical tune-up” of the equipment to ensure everything is working properly. Once that is complete, the station will go on the air with its signature programming. The schedule will be comprised of news and information content by a number of high quality national program producers such as NPR, American Public Media, Public Radio International and others, as well as content produced by TPR.
TPR will also be weaving local content into the schedule. Area listeners will be able to submit their news and events for posting on the TPR website and for broadcast in TPR’s Gonzales service area. Important Gonzales news and events will also be shared on TPR’s San Antonio-area station, KSTX-FM.
“Part of the mission of Texas Public Radio is to bring public radio to underserved markets in the great state of Texas,” said Joyce Slocum, President and CEO of TPR. “Gonzales provides a great opportunity for us to extend this mission east of San Antonio.”
The TPR service area for 1450 AM will include Luling, Waelder, Moulton, Shiner and Cheapside, in addition to Gonzales. When the station reaches full power, its signal will reach as far as the San Marcos and La Grange vicinities, including the cities of Lockhart, Seguin, Nixon, Smiley, Stockdale, Cuero, Yoakum, Hallettsville, Flatonia, Schulenburg, Bastrop and Smithville. The schedule will include NPR’s flagship news magazines Morning Edition and All Things Considered among others. Entertainment programs will include public radio favorites like Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me, Ask Me Another, Car Talk, A Prairie Home Companion and This American Life.
The Texas Standard, known as “the national daily news show of Texas,” co-produced by TPR together with public radio stations in Austin, Dallas and Houston will be broadcast at 11 a.m. on weekdays. Also airing will be the TPR-produced shows Texas Matters, a statewide news program that spends half an hour each week looking at the issues and culture of Texas, and Fronteras, a show focusing on the changing culture and demographics of the American Southwest and issues affecting politics, social order, economics and the environmental landscape.
