Public Radio Exchange

AIR “unpacks” PRX Part II

Jake posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 | Blog, PRX in the News

On assignment for our colleagues over at the Association of Independents in Radio, Barrett Golding has posted Part II of his deep dive into public radio distribution, focusing mostly on PRX with a dollop of PRSS/ContentDepot for good measure.

As with Part I there is a lot to chew on, some excellent insights into how PRX works, and where it needs improvement. The article is hugely helpful in gathering and distilling opinions about PRX from stations and producers.

Click here to download a PDF of the combined Parts I and II.

There are a few items that merit further comment and context from PRX, so here are some notes:

* A key shout-out.

PRX started with $2 million in seed money from CPB

Any telling of how PRX came to be should refer to our “creation myth” (which also happens to be a true story) when the Station Resource Group (SRG) teamed up with Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media back in 2001/2002 to conceive of PRX and secure its initial funding, which was more like $250,000 from SRG than $2M from CPB. CPB, Ford, NEA and others did then step in with critical early investments and ongoing support. But SRG incubated and nurtured PRX all the way until we established an independent 501c3 organization here in Massachusetts in 2009. The joining of forces between SRG and Jay/Atlantic really forms PRX’s DNA and is reflected in our dual mission of serving stations and producers.

* “National” shows vs local stations, some context.

“For instance, World Vision Report picked up a piece [originally on Marketplace] I’d done about a marathon runner for their show before the NYC Marathon. They paid $750. I’m afraid to look at what I would have gotten from a PRX sale – maybe $24?”

PRX always encourages producers to shop their work to national shows or directly to stations if they can get higher rates in addition to or instead of whatever they might earn on the open PRX market. This is one reason our terms are non-exclusive. It’s also important to note that PRX does not permit national shows to buy programs directly from PRX at local station rates. If a national program (or a non-station acquirer like a podcast) wants a piece on PRX they have to match or exceed their standard acquisition rates, and request opt-ins from producers through the site.

So in this case the $750 represents a direct acquisition by a national program, and the $24 might represent one or two local licenses of the piece on PRX. Also worth noting: we have not observed any negative effects of producers posting a piece to PRX and also trying to sell it to shows directly.

* PRX’s program strategy.

“If the mission of PRX is to widen access to the airwaves to independent producers, then it seems problematic to me to heavily promote PRX-sponsored projects”

With tens of thousands of programs churning through PRX it is a constant puzzle to get the best stuff up and out. We use a mix of smart humans (PRX editors, curators, commenters) and smart machines (search, metadata, collaborative filtering and recommendations) to do it. We recognized early on that PRX would need to exercise editorial discretion to be valuable and relevant to stations and audiences, and fulfill our mission of surfacing new and compelling voices for public radio.

So our approach can be seen as a three-tiered pyramid: first, a broad base of open distribution that invites anyone to upload directly to the PRX platform; second, the curated space where PRX makes editorial choices to feature timely, relevant and high quality work on the home page, newsletters, and directly with stations; and third is “PRX Presents” where we are more deeply involved in developing a program, a project, an app, etc. At each level we are expressing a particular content vision and strategy, which gets sharper as you climb the pyramid.

Overall we feel this is a meritocratic approach that strengthens PRX’s relationship with stations and gives a broad swath of producers a fair shot at reaching audiences. Also we remind producers to contact PRX Editors (prxeditors AT prx.org) any time you have a piece that merits featuring – we catch a lot but miss some too.

* Reviews and Comments.

Some lament the loss of the PRX Editorial Board, hired to generate reviews.

PRX used to have a paid editorial board and an assignment process (brilliantly managed by Atlantic Public Media) for reviewing a certain number of new pieces each month, but found that the effort and expense wasn’t paying off in the results of station licensing. In general reviews and comments to date have had more value for producers getting feedback than stations using them to discover programs. With the introduction of Playlists we continue to employ “format curators” who help find the best work in particular categories as a service to stations.

Generally reviews on PRX have had mixed success (though comments are picking up steam), and are ripe for reinvention – something we’ll be taking a hard look at this year and would welcome your input on.

* PRX and ContentDepot.

Producers often use both PRX and PRSS to distribute their work, and the two organizations have had conversations about working together – someday

We have a ton of respect for our DC colleagues at PRSS, and don’t envy them the task of distributing the essential live, daily news and programs to stations through satellites in outer space. But we also need to point out that this conversation has been entirely one way. Over the past five years – starting before the launch of ContentDepot – PRX has repeatedly and unsuccessfully proposed working with PRSS on integrating our systems, sharing code and standards, and other collaborative ideas. In fact we first launched in 2003 with our audio server hosted at PRSS with hopes it would segue to a partnership.

We see it as a big missed opportunity to create more efficient distribution options for public radio, and make the most of the investments in PRX’s leading-edge web application and related tools. Why no love from NPR Distribution? We think it’s mostly because they have had their hands full with myriad problems launching and operating ContentDepot, managing major upgrades to the other parts of the satellite system, and generally – and understandably – focusing on the pressing needs of their station customers. In the meantime we continue to develop the PRX platform to support more robust distribution features like subscription delivery, broadcast automation integration, and other nifty improvements that will continue to make PRX the preferred path for producers of pre-recorded programs (we have no ambitions to take on broadcast delivery of live/news programs – not a good use of the Internets!). We’d welcome the opportunity to work together with PRSS, and at least save producers and stations from the dreaded “double upload”…

Tags: air, airblast, barrett golding, contentdepot, prss

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