Peter Werbe

Peter Werbe is a radio talk show host and political activist. He hosts Nightcall Sunday nights on Detroit's WRIF 101.1 FM. Werbe's tenure, having commenced in 1970, makes him one of the longest broadcasting talk show hosts in radio history.

Nightcall

Peter Werbe has been a fixture in Detroit alternative media for the last four decades, hosting WRIF's weekly public affairs broadcast, Nightcall, and, with the almost fifty-year-old, anarchist magazine, the Fifth Estate

Nightcall is a live, two-hour, phone-in talk show aired on Sunday nights beginning at 11pm Eastern, followed by two half-hour recorded interviews with various authors, activists, and academics at 1am. Since 2006, he has been joined by singer/songwriter and WCSX DJ Juline Jordan.

Werbe took over a weekly talk show on WRIF, Spare Change, in 1970 from Harvey Ovshinsky, founder of the Fifth Estate newspaper. When Ovshinsky left to become News Director of seminal FM rocker WABX in Detroit, Werbe remained as a weekly host until 1972 when the station owners, ABC Radio, decided that each of their owned and operated FM station should have a daily overnight public affairs phone-in talk show to cover their license requirements with the Federal Communications Commission. Werbe re-christened it Nightcall, although actually it was through an on-air listener contest to name the broadcast.

Werbe hosted the program from July 1972 until 1976 doing variously a three- and four-hour show in the middle of the night. The show was terminated when ABC decided such programming was no longer necessary for their purposes. After a brief stint at WABX, Werbe remained on unemployment compensation until 1978 when he hired on as a week-end rock DJ at Detroit's WWWW and also hosted a one hour, weekend jazz program. When the station changed its rock format to country in 1980 to sabotage an AFTRA broadcasters' union organizing effort, Werbe quit and worked in construction until 1982 when he was re-hired at WRIF by program director, Fred Jacobs, as a weekend DJ. When Nightcall's then-host Michael Collins left, Werbe re-assumed the reins where he has held forth since. Prior to Collins, Sheila Rushlow had been the host.

Werbe currently hosts a Mon-Fri classic rock show on the WCSX HD channel, Deep Trax, from 2-7pm.

Werbe also hosts the weekly Peter Werbe Show, where he interviews authors, musicians, and political and cultural activists. The show features two 25-minute interviews. In the Detroit area, The Peter Werbe Show can be heard on WCSX and WMGC-FM Sunday mornings at 6:00 AM, and directly following Nightcall at 1:00 AM on WRIF. Podcast links to the interviews are available through Peter's website, mentioned above.

Werbe hosted a nationally syndicated program on the now-defunct i.e. America Radio Network, from October 2000 to June 2003.

Fifth Estate

Werbe has been a staff member of the Fifth Estate magazine (www.fifthestate.org) almost since its inception in 1965. It began publishing as a biweekly and then a weekly in the early 1970s, went back to a bi-weekly schedule, then appeared as a monthly. It now publishes three times a year.

External links

• Official website
• Tribes of the Cass Corridor
• Peter Werbe interviews Frank Zappa - Transcript of a WRIF telephone conversation (October 28, 1985).