This American Life

Live Radio

Radio Programs

Friday - 7:00 pm / Saturday 9:00 am

Hosted by Ira Glass

This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 2.1 million listeners. There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always. There's lots more to the show, but it's sort of hard to describe. Probably the best way to understand the show is to start at our favorites page, http://www.thisamericanlife.org/favorites , though we do have longer guides to our radio show and our TV show. If you want to dive into the hundreds of episodes we've done over the years, there's an archive of all our old radio shows and listings for all our TV episodes, too.

Ira Glass Host and Executive Producer

Ira Glass started working in public radio in 1978, when he was 19, as an intern at NPR's headquarters in DC. Over the next 17 years, he worked on nearly every NPR news show and did nearly every production job they had: tape-cutter, desk assistant, newscast writer, editor, producer, reporter, and substitute host. He spent a year in a high school for NPR, and a year in an elementary school, filing stories for All Things Considered. He moved to Chicago in 1989 and put This American Life on the air in 1995.

www.thisamericanlife.org

file 000 Stories of people trying to chip away at huge problems — a massive wildland fire, a raging pandemic — where no matter how hard they work, the problem keeps crashing down on them.

This American Life is heard every Friday night at 7:00 pm; repeating every Saturday morning at 9:00 am on KRCB-FM Radio 91 / Streaming @ norcalpublicmedia.org / On-demand with the FREE KRCB App @ iTunes App Store & Google Play!

Find our complete programming schedule here.

(Photo: Courtesy Zach Hanson)

TAL 600x600 To celebrate our 25th year on the air, we spend an hour with people who also turned 25 this year. Talking with them about their dreams, fears, and anxieties, large and small. And how they're making their way through the world right now.

Find our complete programming schedule here.

Support KRCB FM NorCal Public Media during our Holiday Fundraiser! Visit norcalpublicmedia.org/donate and select a level of support that works for you! We have a variety of thank you gifts to choose from. Thanks for your ongoing support of local public media in the North Bay!

this american life Hear an excerpt from a story from 1998, during the early days of the show. It’s about a teenager who’s doing drugs and selling drugs and realizes his dad has been tape recording his phone calls.

Also, Ira plays clips from a recent story by Miki Meek, in an episode about schools reopening during the pandemic.

Then, Ira plays a story from before coronavirus, when people could gather in theaters. It’s from one of our live shows – a story performed by Tig Notaro, about Taylor Dayne.

Finally, hear one of Ira’s favorite stories we’ve ever done, by David Wilcox, about his sister and his mom.

If you make a $60 donation, or just $5 a month, in support of This American Life and KRCB FM, you will get download access to 50 favorite episodes of This American Life as picked by Ira himself! He’ll tell you more about this exciting offer in the show.

Find our complete programming schedule here.

619 TAL Just a few years before he got the internship at NPR that started him in radio, our host Ira Glass had another career. He performed magic at children's birthday parties. A powerful sense of embarrassment has prevented him from ever doing an episode on the subject, but when he learned that producer David Kestenbaum was also a kid conjurer, they decided to dive in together.

Find our complete programming schedule here.

(Photo: Ira Glass at about thirteen years old)

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The Magic Show on This American Life – Friday at 7pm