On Satellite Radio, Bob Edwards's Orbit Keeps Expanding

His audience is no longer measured in the millions, but even if only some mysterious number of thousands listen to "The Bob Edwards Show" these days, the gentle baritone of morning radio is taking them into some unusual territory.

In 2004, after National Public Radio clumsily pushed Edwards out of his post as host of "Morning Edition," he moved to XM Satellite Radio, which gave him an hour-long weekday interview program and built a public radio-style channel around him.

NPR executives said they forced Edwards off the morning show after a quarter-century run because he wasn't comfortable doing the quick interviews and updates that the network wanted in a program increasingly oriented to breaking news.

But in the 17 months since he jumped to pay radio, Edwards has displayed more range and reportorial chops than some at NPR had given him credit for. As Howard Stern is learning from his new home at Sirius Satellite Radio, speaking to a much smaller audience takes some adjusting. But it's also liberating: On XM, Edwards has produced full-hour documentaries, long-form profiles and lyrical tributes to musicians and other artists, along with the newsier interviews that were his coin on "Morning Edition."

Now Edwards is taking his act back onto terrestrial public radio, as a two-hour selection of bits from the daily Edwards show debuts on many public stations as "Bob Edwards Weekend." The program, which launched last month, is a co-production of XM and Public Radio International and marks the first time that programming originating on satellite radio is being picked up by broadcast radio. Neither WAMU nor WETA is carrying the show.

Edwards sometimes seemed stiff and formal in his NPR incarnation, though many listeners loved his occasional displays of passionate interest, which came out especially in interviews with musicians and telephone visits with the retired baseball announcer Red Barber.

But on his XM show, Edwards, assisted by a staff of eight producers and editors, sounds relaxed and elicits thoughtful and revealing stories from guests such as Randy Newman, Dave Brubeck, Garrison Keillor and Arlo Guthrie. Lesser-known figures are featured in some of his best shows, such as a full hour devoted to a profile of a Los Angeles priest who works with gang members. Edwards not only interviews the Rev. Greg Boyle but also presents the voices of the ex-gangbangers whom the cleric has guided toward new lives, all blended with the sounds of the L.A. streets in a manner more akin to Ira Glass's "This American Life" than to anything heard on the old "Morning Edition."

"I feel like a grown-up finally," Edwards says. "On 'Morning Edition,' Father Greg's stories would have run in seven-minute bits over several days. Here, they're letting me do whatever I want to do." So when Edwards heard about a community in Montana where Italian Americans were interned during World War II and decided to stay, he headed across the country with recording equipment to produce a program. And when he interviews writers such as Studs Terkel, Dave Barry or Calvin Trillin, he's free to give them a full hour.

The XM show is more highly produced than the NPR program was, reflecting that the Edwards show, like most programming on satellite radio, is recorded in advance, whereas NPR's news programs air live. XM as yet has no news-gathering capacity of its own; its news channels are mainly simulcasts of television programming from CNN, Fox and MSNBC. So Edwards's show often steers clear of the day's news, something he hopes to change as time goes by.

"On NPR, I knew that the powerful of Washington were listening to the program," Edwards says. "Now I don't know that. If I have [former counterterrorism chief] Richard Clarke on the show, I don't know that Condi Rice is listening."

But as Stern will discover, satellite radio is something of a clubhouse, with a small but very involved audience that stays in close touch with programmers via e-mail and online message boards.

Edwards's channel, XM Public Radio, sometimes sounds like the weak end of an FM public station, with too many generic talk shows that seem detached from the news. "But the e-mails pour in, and the rate of growth is stunning," Edwards says. (Satellite radio companies know how many overall listeners they have, but don't have technology to indicate which channels are being listened to. Until the number of subscribers is high enough to justify ratings surveys, the only evidence showing that individual programs are drawing an audience is anecdotal -- listener e-mails and calls.)

With the exception of continuing bad blood with NPR, which has refused permission for several of its top names to appear as guests on his show, Edwards declares himself to be in radio heaven.