I’m pleased to announce some exciting news from Marketplace.  The weekend of Saturday, June 28th, Marketplace is launching a new show called Marketplace Weekend. This new show will replace the current Marketplace Money program. Marketplace Weekend will be a one hour show and Lizzie O’Leary will be the new host.

Marketplace Weekend, like our other Marketplace shows, will live at the intersection of life and money.  Audience research continues to reinforce strong interest around personal finance coverage and we will continue that coverage  across all of our shows, not just on the weekend.

Marketplace Weekend will deliver on our core content coverage area of business and economic news.  We will be adding more technology coverage, a wrap-up and analysis of the week’s “Numbers”, interesting interviews and maintaining the strong and distinctive approach to personal finance and investing that has always been a hallmark of Marketplace Money. This will all be done with Marketplace’s fun, irreverent approach and gives the team a wider range of topics to explore for the weekend audience.

So, what will the show sound like? We’re developing new segments over the next couple of months. Marketplace Weekend will “do the numbers”, bringing its own spin to some of the biggest numbers of the week and showing how the macro economy impacts our everyday lives. As an example, in our segment on gentrification a couple of weeks ago,  Lizzie walked around the streets of Harlem talking to 34-year old Brittny Kone about the two Harlems she’s experienced, from her childhood to today, and how those changes have affected her own personal and financial decisions. (Download the mp3 of this story)

Since joining the Marketplace team last year, Lizzie O’Leary has become an integral voice of Marketplace. She is a phenomenal talent – the perfect combination of a versatile, engaged host and whip smart, dogged journalist. She is routinely called on by MSNBC, CNN and other media outlets for appearances and has a strong and commanding social media presence, which will be instrumental in developing the show’s new online and digital strategy.

We hope you’ll agree that this is a great evolution of our program. We’re confident your listeners will love these new elements of our weekend show.  The Marketplace Weekend team will have a pilot for you to listen to in the coming weeks. Stand by for further communication around that. In addition, Lizzie O’Leary will also be available for calls and interviews as we approach the launch of the new show.

One more note: Marketplace Weekend will go live, as we said, June 28th, the end of the current pricing year.  The price for the new weekend show will be the same price as the current Marketplace Money program. That price is flat for FY15. If you have questions, please contact your station representative.

Deborah Clark