Schedule changes are coming for CBC Radio One and Radio 2, the public broadcaster announced Thursday.

On Radio One, the local noon programs move to a one-hour format from two hours on June 29 and the afternoon schedule will be filled with repeats and repackaged items.

On Radio 2, classical music will come on earlier in the day, and several other shows have been shifted. These changes are a "tweak" to the schedules designed to smooth the transition from classical to contemporary music and back again, according to Chris Boyce, CBC Radio programming director.

As of June 29, the changes to the Radio One schedule are:

  • Local noon programs reduced to an hour.
  • From 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., listeners will hear repeats of shows such as Writers and Company, Dispatches, The Next Chapter and Sirius program Rewind, which features selections from the CBC Archives.
  • The afternoons will also include a selection of listener stories from DNTO and shows that pull together CBC documentaries from the regions and other programs.

The local noon-hour shows will still have a call-in component and a selection of current affairs programming on local issues, but be shorter, Boyce said.

"We are just looking region-by-region at exactly what those shows are going to be, but they won't be dissimilar to what people are used to hearing now," he said. "For us, it's important that those shows are an opportunity for listeners to reconnect to what's happening in their communities on that day."

Boyce acknowledged that CBC has found "significant savings" with cuts in this part of the schedule and repeats of shows.

"Clearly a big part of the [programming cuts] was in the afternoon schedule — moving the noon shows to one hour and cancelling The Point. All the programming that we're putting into that afternoon block is stuff that we're able to put on the air at no additional cost to us," he said.

The public broadcaster announced in March it was cutting the radio programs Out Front, The Inside Track, In the Key of Charles, The Point and the weekend edition of The Signal.

"It's not just repeats. We think it's a very vibrant interesting block of programming," Boyce said. "We think we've made the strongest schedule we can, given our financial situation, but those cuts weighed very heavily on the decisions."

The weekend schedule on Radio One is also being rejigged as of Sept. 7. Among those changes:

  • 16 new episodes of medical program White Coat, Black Art on Saturday.
  • The Debaters moves to 1 p.m. Saturday followed by WireTap and DNTO.
  • Spark moves to Sunday at 1 p.m. and expands to a full hour.

Some of the changes on Radio One's weekend schedule will be phased in over the summer.

On Radio 2, classical music begins earlier, with Julie Nesrallah's five-hour classical program to start at 9 a.m.

Tom Allen's morning show is an hour shorter, and he will be returning in the afternoons with a new show call Shift. Both shows will feature a mix of jazz, classical and contemporary music.

"Tom is a guy with an incredibly wide range of musical interests — a guy who's as comfortable playing classical music as he is singer-songwriter, and we have that opportunity in the afternoon 90 minutes to a do a show that really made the transition from Tempo into Drive."

Rich Terfry's afternoon drive-home program has also brought younger listeners to Radio 2, he added, and CBC wants to build on that.

"It's a show that I think has brought new listeners to Radio 2, and part of the problem was that people were joining the show at 5.30, when they were leaving work, and at 6 p.m. we were completely shifting musical genres and going to jazz on Tonic. This is an opportunity to keep … people listening into the evening."

Other changes on Radio 2:

Terfry's afternoon Drive program is longer, running from 3.30 p.m. to 7 p.m.

  • Canada Live is shorter and starts at 7 p.m.
  • Jazz program Tonic moves to 8 pm.
  • The Signal will be shorter and Laurie Brown will host it seven days a week.

The cuts to Canada Live reflect CBC's need to save money by recording less live music, Boyce said.

"We had to make a significant reduction to the amount of live music that we recorded, and this was definitely a reflection of that. We still record hundreds of concerts every year, which is more live music than anyone in this country records."

Weekend changes on Radio 2 include:

  • Classical music starts earlier at 10 a.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. on Sunday.
  • The end of Jurgen Gothe's Farrago.
  • A new program This is My Music, in which some of the classical music community's brightest stars will showcase their favourite musical selections.
  • Radio One programs Saturday Night Blues, A Propos and Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap are added to the Radio 2 schedule.

"What we're really doing is tweaking the schedule," Boyce said. "We had the big changes to Radio 2."