‘NewsWorks Tonight,’ ‘You Bet Your Garden’ canceled at WHYY

A couple of big changes are coming to WHYY's daily radio programming on 90.9 FM, starting this week with the end of the station's daily news program NewsWorks Tonight.

NewsWorks Tonight will wrap its run following Friday's broadcast. It will be replaced by a new news radio format that is slated to begin broadcasting next month, a WHYY representative confirmed. In the meantime, NewsWorks Tonight's time slot will be filled by All Things Considered, which will be extended to 6:30 p.m. According to WHYY, changes in radio listening habits, such as the preference for shorter segments, podcasts, and streaming services, caused the change at the station. "Deeper dives" into current news stories are planned.

In addition, news stories that would previously have been featured on NewsWorks Tonight will be broadcast on WHYY throughout the day. The program was launched in May 2011 under the direction of former WHYY vice president of news and civic dialogue Chris Satullo, who abruptly left the station in 2015 in what WHYY CEO Bill Marrazzo referred to as a "change in executive leadership" in a memo to staff. Former local news site NewsWorks, meanwhile, was rebranded as WHYY News last year.

"WHYY is not cutting back on local news production," WHYY said via a statement. "The WHYY news staff has grown significantly in the last few years and we are as committed as ever to bringing you trusted, in-depth news from our region, the nation and world. We're just making some changes in how and when we present stories."

>> READ MORE: Satullo is out of top news job at WHYY

WHYY's You Bet Your Garden will also end production, though its last show will be broadcast this month. After that, on Oct. 6, the Saturday afternoon show will be replaced by Planet Money, an economics-focused program, at noon, and How I Built This, which deals with entrepreneurs, at 12:30 p.m. The show's 7 a.m. Saturday broadcasts, meanwhile, will be filled by Travel with Rick Steves, a travel program that currently airs at 5 a.m. on Sundays. The BBC World Service broadcast will fill the show's Sunday morning slot.

"We wish [host Mike McGrath] all the best as he continues to cultivate green (and organic) thumbs," a statement read.