Radio Programs that Make You Smarter Quiz

Answer: Morning Edition

For reporting more in-depth than broadcast-TV news, but with out all the "analytical" filler of cable-TV news, try this staple of National Public Radio (NPR) during your morning commute to work. The program premiered on public radio in 1979. It airs from 5am to 9am Eastern Time (New York time), though in some markets the stations choose to air only some portion of the four-hour block. "Morning Edition" begins each hour with a one-minute "billboard" outlining stories to be covered in the hour. There are also places for stations to air local news content. Peabody Award-winning Bob Edwards hosted the show from its premiere to 2004.

In addition to providing news, "Morning Edition" reviews new music, books, and events in the arts.

Answer: All Things Considered

"All Things Considered" was the first program produced by NPR and premiered on 3 May 1971. Listeners hear a combination of news, analysis, commentary, interviews, and special features, in a variety of lengths and styles. The program airs live Monday through Friday from 4pm to 6pm Eastern Time (New York time); then it repeats with updates. Various public radios stations air some or all of the four hours. On Saturdays and Sundays, "Weekend All Things Considered" airs for an hour at 5pm Eastern. The program has won numerous awards: the Ohio State Award, the Peabody Award, the Overseas Press Club Award, the DuPont Award, the American Women in Radio and Television Award, and the Robert F. Kennedy Award. Like "Morning Edition", "All Things Considered" also has segments on the arts and books.

Answer: Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!

If you need to get your news covered in a heavy sauce of humor, then "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!" might fit the bill. The program is recorded live before an audience at the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago on Thursdays; it is aired nationally in most radio markets on Saturdays and/or Sundays. "Wait Wait" occasionally does road shows in various cities across the USA. Actor-playwright Peter Sagal has hosted the show since 1998. Carl Kasell, the original newsreader for "Morning Edition" was the program's original announcer and scorekeeper, but Bill Kurtis has filled the role since 2014.

In 2018, about 6 million people listened to "Wait Wait" each week on the air and via podcast. Games include questioning the panel on the week's news; "Bluff the Listener" in which a caller must decide which of three panelists is relating a real event that happened that week; and "Listener Limerick Challenge".

The central game is "Not My Job", in which a celebrity, anyone from William Shatner to Wayne Gretzky to Stacey Abrams, is invited to answer questions in a field they presumably know nothing about.

The "Lightning Round" is an exciting endgame in which panelists must answer a blitzkrieg of questions about the week's events.

Answer: Says You!

"Say You!" bills itself as the "quintessential quiz show" and compares itself to a warm and witty cocktail party: "It's spirited and civil, brainy and boisterous, with bon mots and badinage aplenty, peppered with musical interludes. If you could play badminton with words, it would sound much like Says You!" There are two teams who play games in various categories including "Cryptic Puns", "Definitions and Derivations", "What's the Difference".

The core game is the bluffing round, in which three definitions are given for an unusual or obscure word, two of which are bluffs.

The host always recommends that new listeners use a pencil and paper to follow along, and dares you to try to outsmart the panelists. The entire history of the program is archived online for downloading, along with a collection of quips. Listeners may also contribute questions.

Answer: TED Radio Hour

TED Talks are widely available on YouTube and other video platforms, but NPR also distributes a weekly selection of them to public radio stations and offers podcasts. They are the brainchild of Richard Saul Wurman, who founded TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in 1984 as a conference, held annually since 1990.

The NPR program began airing in 2012 and was hosted by Guy Raz until 20 December 2019, when Manoush Zomordi took the helm in the middle of a farewell epiosde. Each episode of the "TED Radio Hour" brings together TED Talks from the various conference with a common theme.

For example, one theme was finding wisdom at every stage of life and included such talks as "What Wisdom Can Adults Learn from Kids?" and "Can One Generation Teach the Next about Manhood?".

Other episodes have been about keeping secrets, failure, and how ideas or brands go viral.

Answer: Ask Me Another

Slightly edgier than "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" and more of an actual game show, "Ask Me Another" is hosted by Canadian comedienne Ophira Eisenberg, who is assisted by the in-house musician Jonathan Coulton. The hour-long program features four to five games that involve trivia or wordplay, and while current events play a part they are not the center as with "Wait Wait".

The games vary widely, from rhyming games to musical games to word games, and are sometimes complicated, with the rules explained beforehand to the contestants.

In the middle of the show the main contest is interrupted by a game with the Very Important Puzzler, a celebrity guest who puts his or her abilities to the test.

Answer: Weekend Radio

Robert Conrad, host of the Cleveland Orchestra broadcasts on WCLV, has presented "Weekend Radio" on Saturdays since 1982. He combines classical music, crossover music (or music that embraces multiple genres), and comedy bits from 20th-century American and British radio (some dating back to the 1950s), all drawn from the radio station's extensive library. Conrad uses "Chases' Calendar of Events" to theme some of his shows, e.g. Computer Learning Month or Weathermen's Day. Listeners can send in errors they find in newspapers, church bulletins, billboards, or online media for the "This Week in the Media" segment. If the contribution is read on the air, the listener gets a prize.

There are also on-air essays by various writers, including Jan C. Snow and Mark Levy.

Answer: Performance Today

Since the 1990s, "Performance Today" has been USA's most popular classical-music radio program, with over 2.1 million listeners logged in 2018. Although based in the American Public Media (APM) studios in Saint Paul, Minnesota, there are many road-show episodes that take the listener to various festivals and radio stations around the country.

The Peabody-winning program has a weekly Piano Puzzler during which scholar-composer Bruce Adolphe plays a familiar tune in the style of a familiar composer of the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic periods (e.g. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms).

The listener must guess the name of tune as well the composer being mimicked.

Answer: Harmonia

Produced at WFIU in Bloomington, Indiana, "Harmonia" is unique in its focus on Early Music -- medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque. The host Angela Mariani plays music, interviews musicians and scholars, and presents commentary on a range of topics, which often tie into a holiday or special event.

For example in 2019 Mariani explored the Jewish spring holiday of Purim with music from the Spanish Renaissance as well as Jewish/Yiddish Baroque music. Other shows examined the earliest written music of Bach, and the Mardi Gras episode featured music for Carnival from Renaissance Florence and 18th-century Venice, where Carnival might last half a year! Others shows have featured music from newly restored or (re)discovered manuscripts that are rarely heard today.

Answer: (Music from the) Hearts of Space

"Hearts of Space" was brought to Earth by producer Stephen Hill, who calls all the music gathered on his show "space music" regardless of genre. He began broadcasting this pioneering program in 1973 as a three-hour feature called "Music from the Hearts of Space" (a name many long-time fans still call the show). Eventually, the name shortened to "Hearts of the Space" and the program length to one hour. Each episode, or "transmission", is centered on a theme, but from the initial, gentle voice-over introducing the theme to the soothing, final voice-over, the music is virtually uninterrupted. All the ambient, electronic, New-Agey, contemplative, and spacey music ever played and not played yet is available on the streaming service on Hill's website at various subscription levels.

Some say this kind of music reduces stress, activates the brain, improves learning, removes blockages, dissolves toxins, cures acne, and slows aging. It is certainly the perfect music for relaxing, researching, or studying. Hill ends every transmission with the words, "Safe journeys, space fans... wherever you are."