WAMU in Washington, D.C., announced that it is dropping all bluegrass programming from its weekend schedule and replacing long-running music shows with news/talk programming. The station will invest in major upgrades to its HD Radio service, WAMU Bluegrass Country, by broadcasting up to eight hours daily of live-hosted programs on 88.5-2, and will give away 1,000 HD Radios to listeners who contributed to its bluegrass programming within the past year. WThe station once broadcast more than 20 hours a week of bluegrass and other acoustic American music, according to Washington Post columnist and blogger Marc Fisher. hopes to continue to serve bluegrass listeners by upgrading it digital channel WAMU Bluegrass County

WAMU in Washington, D.C., announced that it is dropping all bluegrass programming from its weekend schedule and replacing long-running music shows with news/talk programming. The station will invest in upgrades to its HD Radio service, WAMU Bluegrass Country, by adding digital multicasts of live-hosted music programs on 88.5-2. It also will give away 1,000 HD Radios to listeners who contributed to its bluegrass programming within the past year. A third digital channel will combine news programming from the BBC and music from Triple-A outlet WTMD in Towson, Md. (All three schedules are posted here.) WAMU once broadcast more than 20 hours a week of bluegrass and other acoustic music programming, according to according to the Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher, who reports on the changes today on his blog.

“I think there is enough competition in the media world. Between iPods and downloads, there is enough competition without worrying about another station,” says Gerry Weston, g.m. of Public Radio Delmarva stations WSCL and WSDL serving Maryland’s coastal communities. The Daily Times of Salisbury, Md., reports on plans for Baltimore’s WYPR to begin beaming its NPR News service into Ocean City and examines how competition from the distant station will affect local pubradio outlets.

“We like public TV as much as the next viewer, but we wonder whether the city of Pismo Beach had enjoyed one glass of wine too many when it agreed to pay $50,000 to sponsor a PBS reality series called ‘The Wine Makers’,” reads an opinion piece in The Tribune, the newspaper of San Luis Obispo County.

“The creation of Iowa Public Radio, and its early success, should send an important signal to a public radio system that is vastly overbuilt,” writes IPR Content Director Todd Mundt, in a blog entry describing the evolving state network’s first year of service. “Maintaining local public service is not the same thing as maintaining hundreds of independent stations.”

After learning that a mega-church that actively opposes the gay rights movement had been booked for his upcoming appearance in Portland, This American Life host Ira Glass requested a change in venue, according to local news accounts. Oregon Public Broadcasting, which is hosting the event, defended its first choice of venue but later rented the convention center.

After his critique of Bill Moyers’ commentary on Karl Rove, PBS ombudsman Michael Gelter says he got a load of pro-Moyers mail. In his Aug. 24 column, Getler questioned Moyers’ reporting on Rove’s religious convictions.

In a press release today, PBS details “a number of broadcast premieres and encore presentations that recognize the cultural, historical and societal impact of America’s growing Hispanic community.” The programs, to air during Hispanic Heritage Month, come in the wake of protests against Ken Burns’ upcoming series The War. Latino groups, concerned about the lack of Latino vets in the WWII film, have asked PBS for assurance that it would work harder to include Latinos in “current and future programming” (Current, Aug. 27). Some Latino filmmakers have credited the Burns controversy with opening doors for them at PBS (via AP).

Eva Georgia, embattled g.m. of Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles, will leave the job on October 31, according to the Los Angeles Times. “Being General Manager of a progressive community radio station isn’t easy,” said Greg Guma, Pacifica executive director, in a statement reaffirming the Pacifica National board’s support for Georgia. “In fact, it’s a tough and draining job.” Georgia has been accused of sexual harassment and racial discrimination in two pending lawsuits.

“I don’t know that many liberals go to the AM dial, because it’s full of right-wingers and sports,” says Randy Dotinga, radio columnist for the North County Times, in a report on the likely end to the progressive-talk format on KLSD-AM, a Clear Channel station in San Diego. “If you don’t like right-wingers and sports, there’s no reason to flip to AM.” Dotinga tells the San Diego CityBEAT that KLSD will always have problems competing with KPBS, the local pubradio outlet on the FM dial.

“A lot [of] people outside our core demographics are interested in our content,” NPR CEO Ken Stern tells the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “They’re turned off by our conventions.” In a P-I story published yesterday, Stern described several NPR initiatives of interest to Seattle’s pubradio listeners, each of which launch in October: Bryant Park, a morning newsmag for twenty- and thirty-somethings cohosted by former KUOW reporter Luke Burbank, major upgrades to its music website featuring station-produced programming, and a new service that will deliver NPR content to mobile devices. Seattle’s KPLU and KEXP are partners in the new music website and KPLU helping NPR launch the new mobile service, the P-I reports.

Nekkid in Oregon: “When Oregon Public Broadcasting airs Portland director Ian McCluskey’s Eloquent Nude this Thursday, Aug. 30, it will be showing a gorgeous, poignant documentary about the love affair between an iconic photographer and his model,” reports the Willamette Week. “It will also be showing a nekkid woman.” The program about Edward Weston, which airs state-wide at 10 p.m., already has been featured in Portland theaters.

The Cincinnati Post reports on an unusual radio partnership: Cincinnati Public Radio’s WVXU-FM recently began HD Radio broadcasts of WOXY.com, a station that brought alternative rock to southwestern Ohio in the 1980s and, after ending broadcasts three years ago, struggled to survive as an Internet-only station. “I see it as the perfect test run of a multicast channel to see what sort of legs it has,” says Bryan Miller, WOXY.com g.m. “We have a built in audience. There is a pent up demand in the market for alternative rock.”

Why Washington Post Radio failed: unfulfilled promises to deliver in-depth news, clashes between the cultures of two different newsrooms, and too many moments when Post reporters froze up on the air, according to Marc Fisher, Post radio columnist and blogger.

In an online post, CBS News covers the “War of Words in MediaLand going on for more than a week now: Karl Rove versus Bill Moyers.” This “war” has been facilitated mostly by Fox News, which hosted Rove and asked him to respond to Moyers’ mention that Rove might be agnostic. Moyers wrote a letter to Fox host Chris Wallace and Wallace responded to Moyers on Fox News Sunday.