Genre Interview Country United States Home station WHYY | Running time ca. 50 min. Language(s) English Syndicates NPR, WHYY | |
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Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States since 1985. It is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The show's host is Terry Gross. As of 2017, the show was syndicated to 624 stations and claimed nearly 5 million listeners. The show is fed live weekdays at 12:00 noon ET. In addition, some stations carry Fresh Air Weekend, a re-programming of highlights of the past week's interviews.
Contents
Overview
The show began in 1975 at WHYY with Judy Blank as host. In September of that year, Terry Gross took over as presenter and producer; over 40 years later she remains its chief presenter. In 1985, WHYY launched a weekly half-hour edition of Fresh Air, which was distributed nationally by NPR. The show began daily national broadcasts in 1987. The show primarily includes interviews with prominent figures in various fields, including: arts and entertainment, culture, journalism, and world news. Shorter segments follow the main segment and carry reviews of various cultural and entertainment diversions on a rotating basis. The subjects of the shorter segments include movies, books, stage plays, television programs, as well as recordings of popular music, jazz, and classical music. The program also features commentary from a range of regular contributors, including Maureen Corrigan, David Bianculli, Dave Davies, Ken Tucker, Kevin Whitehead, John Powers, Lloyd Schwartz, David Edelstein, Milo Miles, and Ed Ward.
Background
All of the program's interviews are recorded and later edited. As in the case of many such radio programs, guests are often not in the studio during recording, often speaking remotely from a local station or home studio. When pressing news requires, it has gone live, such as during the Soviet coup attempt of 1991 and the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 19, 2013.
Fresh Air interviews are generally first aired on the Monday through Thursday shows. The Friday shows are rebroadcasts of past interviews.
The show's theme song, a jazz piece called "Fresh Air", was composed for the program by Joel Forrester of The Microscopic Septet.
Noteworthy interviews
In February 2002, when Gross interviewed Gene Simmons of Kiss, Simmons discussed his sexual experimentation with women of all age groups and propositioned Gross in demonstration; according to NPR's website, Simmons withheld permission to supply transcripts or audio of the interview on their website.
In July 2010, Fresh Air was removed from Mississippi Public Broadcasting radio because of "recurring inappropriate content", shortly after the broadcast of an interview with comedian Louis C.K. in which he discussed his sex life. It has since returned to the MPB evening line-up.
Awards
In 1993, NPR, Fresh Air, and Gross were presented with the George Foster Peabody Award with praise for her "probing questions, revelatory interviews, and unusual insights." The show was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2012.
In 2004, Gross published a book of her favorite interviews from the show under the title All I Did Was Ask.