In addition, WXPN will greatly increase its news and public-affairs programming - primarily through a 90-minute weekday-evening show compiled from Canadian Broadcasting Corp., BBC and Pacifica National News programs - and will devote another 90 minutes each weeknight to the live, Peabody Award- winning children's show Kids America.
Mark Fuerst, WXPN general manager since he arrived at the station in November, said the idea was to devise a smoother-flowing schedule that would collect the station's folk-oriented programming in the morning and the rock- oriented programming in the evening. The bridge between them is to be a mixture of international music and news.
The mandate for change, Fuerst says, came from the university. During the last several years, the station had incurred a $100,000 debt, which the school was willing to retire if Fuerst could make the station more self-sufficient. And a 1985 consultant's report, commissioned by the WXPN policy board, confirmed the beliefs of board members that the station was not living up to its potential for excellence.
The report recommended an increase in news and public-affairs programming to attract a wider audience. And, says Fuerst, it suggested that WXPN's hodgepodge of non-complementary musical programming "encouraged listeners to tune out every couple of hours."
Nonetheless, the programming changes - and Fuerst himself - are coming under criticism from some listeners and many of the more than 100 volunteers who produce and host the station's diverse programs.
The station's volunteer staff is about one-third students. Virtually all staff members have a program specialization, be it Celtic folk music or lesbian public affairs.
From that group has come Friends of WXPN - "FOX" for short - to protest the schedule revision.
