Your week at a glance: March 21-27

Here are the latest updates for upcoming programs. PLEASE NOTE: All details are subject to change. Additional details will be shared via ContentDepot as they become available.

Use the links below to visit our dedicated program pages, where you’ll find show logos, digital assets and more.


News

BBC World Service

Interim and Summer schedules: Due to discrepancies in Daylight Saving Time between the US and the UK, the BBC World Service will be on a two-week interim schedule from March 13-26. On March 27, the summer schedule will begin, running through October 29, 2022. Find the pdf schedules here on our website.

Ukraine coverage: The BBC World Service schedule is being modified on a day-to-day basis to accommodate coverage of the developments in Ukraine. Be sure to set your ContentDepot preferences to consistently receive Alert – Breaking News Advisory or Alert – Program Update messaging for the latest changes.

Marketplace

Marketplace (PM)

Crypto mining series: Each Friday in March, Marketplace will feature an episode from a short series on cryptocurrency mining. The series will focus on what crypto mining is, its environmental impacts, and how US cities are handling the influx of mining operations. Series promos will be posted to ContentDepot here.

  • March 25: Oil and Gas Mining: Big oil production firms in Texas waste a ridiculous amount of natural gas by simply burning it off at the well head. “Flaring” releases a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere, but that’s not nearly as bad for climate change as simply releasing a bunch of methane would be. Building pipes to carry the gas wherever people might want to buy it would cost a lot more than people would be willing to pay for the gas. As Marketplace’s Andy Uhler reports, with crypto mining firms flocking to Texas, a contingent of the state’s oil industry is trying to attract coin mining operations to build new facilities near oilfields with lots of methane flaring – and pipes to carry the gas from the wells to the mine’s own power plant.

Week of March 21

  • An explainer looking at what is happening with the nickel market: Producers of commodities often take short selling positions in the commodities market to hedge their risk—the thinking being if the price of oil or wheat or copper plummets, oil companies and farmers and mining firms are protected. But something went really wrong for a nickel mining firm in China that took a short position—so much so that the London Metal Exchange took the almost unprecedented step of suspending trade to protect the mining firm from bankruptcy when the Ukraine conflict sent mining prices soaring.

Marketplace Tech

  • March 21: Continuing Marketplace’s series on crypto mining, we talk with Marketplace’s Andy Uhler on the migrations of many cryptocurrency mining operations from China to Oklahoma and Texas, where small towns are bending over backwards to attract them. The small town of Rockdale, Texas is welcoming two of the world’s biggest crypto mining companies — one of which is replacing operations that China shot down.
  • March 22: Federal regulators are turning to a new enforcement tool against companies that use deceptive digital data practices and violate consumers’ privacy: requiring them to destroy the algorithms, or AI models, companies build using that data. We speak with Protocol reporter Kate Kaye.

On Point

This coming week, On Point will continue to cover the consequences of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  • March 21: The confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court are scheduled to begin today. If confirmed by the Senate, she would be the first Black woman to serve on the court and its first justice to have been a public defender. On Point takes a closer look at this period in her career and asks what difference it could make to have a public defender on the bench.

Arts and Culture

Time Machine from The Current

March 25 – 1978

  • The Time Machine hits 1978 this time. The year Sex Pistols played their final show, until they reunited years later. Bob Marley triumphantly returned to Jamaica to play a peace concert after being shot there 2 years earlier. He also released his 10th album. Reggae was popping up everywhere, including songs by Elvis Costello & Althea & Donna. It was a big year for New York bands like Talking Heads, Blondie and Ramones. Dire Straits emerged with a little song about a jazz band. The Rolling Stones released Some Girls, which was maybe their best album since Exile on Main Street. The band Chic packed the dance floor with a song they wrote about not being allowed into a disco.
  • Beyond the world of music: Speaking of disco, Saturday Night Fever became a cultural phenomenon. Did you own a pair of sans belt pants? There were TV debuts like WKRP in Cincinnati (rest in peace Howard Hessman) & Dallas. I still don’t know who shot JR! It’s all 1978, our year on this episode of Time Machine from the Current.

The Splendid Table

Repeat Episode – March 25: Pasta

  • Evan Kleiman, host of Good Food on KCRW and Dan Pashman of The Sporkful join us to debate the merits of different pasta shapes in front of a live audience.
  • We also talk to Dan about his years-long quest to create his pasta shape.
  • Chef Douglass Williams of MIDA is in-house to help Francis take your pasta questions.

Timely Selections

Digital / Marketing tool from the BBC World Service

All BBC affiliated stations have access to rights-cleared videos produced by the BBC. Use these shareable videos to bolster your social platforms. Set up your account to access the BBC Media Partner Centre and follow the link below to explore the library of videos!

VIEW VIDEOS HERE
Questions? Reach out to your Station Relations Representative.

Selected Shorts: Celebrating Toni Morrison

Broadcast Window: February 1, 2022 – March 31, 2022

Length: One hour

Guest host Tayari Jones (New York Times bestselling author, most recently of the novel An American Marriage) helps us to celebrate Morrison, the American master who died in 2019. Morrison’s novels, including Beloved, Jazz and Song of Solomon, have become an indelible part of the American canon. Her fierce, poetic visions earned her the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was also an editor, advocate, teacher, and mother.

Questions? Please contact your Station Representative.