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ypradio.org > YPR Program Guide > Program Listings > A Prairie Home Companion

A Prairie Home Companion

Saturdays 4pm, repeated Sundays 1pm

Program Website: http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/

Garrison Keillor went to work for Minnesota Public Radio in 1969 on the 6:00-9:00 a.m. program called A Prairie Home Companion—named after the Prairie Home cemetery in Moorhead, Minnesota. It was after he began work on an article for the New Yorker magazine about the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, that he developed an idea for a radio show with musical guests, comedy sketches and commercials for imaginary products. On July 6, 1974, Keillor hosted the first live broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College, Saint Paul. Producer Margaret Moos sold tickets for $1 for adults (50 cents for children) and the audience of 12 produced a total gate of something less than $8.
During its first 10 years, A Prairie Home Companion produced 477 live shows. On March 4, 1978, the show moved to The World Theater in Saint Paul, which at the time was boarded-up and expected to be demolished. The former World Theater, now the renovated Fitzgerald Theater, has been the program’s home base ever since.

Today, A Prairie Home Companion is heard by over 4 million listeners each week on over 580 public radio stations, and is heard abroad on America One and the Armed Forces Networks in Europe and the Far East. Keillor remembers, “When the show started, it was something funny to do with my friends, and then it became an achievement that I hoped would be successful, and now it’s a good way of life.”
A consummate storyteller, Keillor is the internationally known author of fifteen books and a regular contributor to Time magazine, Atlantic Monthly and many others. He has won numerous awards, including a Grammy, two ACE Awards, and Peabody, and was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame.

May 24 (repeated May 25)
APHC visits Vienna, Virginia, for a live broadcast performance at the Filene Center at Wolftrap National Park.