PRX in the News
Distribution as Promotion - Rekha on Growing the Audience
Jake posted on Sunday, February 22nd, 2009 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
PRX’s Rekha Murthy was recently invited to add her thoughts to the Station Resource Group’s (SRG) collection of short essays on how to “widen the use and deepen the value of public radio’s service.” SRG is putting the finishing touches on Grow the Audience - an important and much-anticipated research initiative funded by CPB. You can read more about the full project and download more of the preliminary reports and essays here.
Download the PDF of Rekha’s essay, excerpted here.
Distribution as Promotion
Setting public radio objects in motionby Rekha Murthy
Public Radio Exchange (PRX)Six years ago, I left NPR to work with Web and mobile media. Now I’m back in public
radio, with Public Radio Exchange, and I think of that time away as a really long aircheck.
I’m no longer the listener I used to produce for at All Things Considered: terrestrial
broadcast is only a fraction of a listening experience that has become fragmented and
dynamic. I stream station and show feeds from across the country, catching Morning
Edition on KCRW when I oversleep on a snowy morning, and sticking around for sunny
weather reports and Morning Becomes Eclectic. My browser’s bookmarks include On the
Media, Studio 360, This American Life, and All Songs Considered. I download podcasts like
World Cafe, alt.NPR, and The World Technology Podcast. I tend to listen to All Things
Considered by scanning the online rundowns and streaming only what grabs my interest.
Even when I do use my radio receiver, I’ll then go to the Web to email a good story or
episode to friends and post the link on a social bookmarking site. The Web is where I find
new listening, too.This experience of fragmentation and recombination forms the basis of how I think about
growing the public radio audience.Break Public Radio Down to Build It Back Up
Public radio is often talked about as a single entity. In some ways – such as mission and
standards – it is, and we should continue to raise public awareness at the entity level.
However, there’s another kind of outreach that has great potential in today’s fragmented
media landscape, one that wields public radio objects, not just categories or entities. …
Agreement Reached for Public Radio’s Webcasting Royalty Rates
Jake posted on Friday, January 16th, 2009 | Blog, PRX in the News, Press Releases | No Comments
After a long and winding road of discussions and negotiations, public radio now has an agreement covering payments for music rights for streaming internet radio. We are grateful that PRX is included in the agreement with NPR, American Public Media and Public Radio International. Our colleagues at the Station Resource Group played a key role alongside CPB and NPR in hammering out the deal. Thank you! (and just in time for the Public Radio Tuner to take off…)
Here is the full press release on CPB’s site.
An excerpt:
The agreement establishes the amount of royalties that will be paid by CPB on behalf of the public radio system for streaming sound recordings on a variety of public radio websites during the period January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2010. The agreement [...] will cover approximately 450 public radio webcasters including CPB supported stations, NPR, NPR members, National Federation of Community Broadcasters members, American Public Media, the Public Radio Exchange, and Public Radio International.
Both parties praise the agreement for reinforcing the value of artists’ performances, while recognizing the unique mission of public radio.
coming up: iPhone project
Jake posted on Friday, November 14th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News, Tech | No Comments
Karen Everhart of Current catches up on a new project that PRX is helping pull together - an iPhone application for public radio.
To be released early next year: a CPB-funded adaptation of the APM player to be developed by a partnership of NPR, APM, PRI, Public Interactive and Public Radio Exchange (PRX).
The jointly developed player will probably offer even more stations plus additional capabilities. It aims to let users find a local station by using the cell phone’s global positioning system capability, according to Jake Shapiro, PRX executive director. And it will allow searches for pubradio stations by format.
Read the full article on Current.org.
We’ll be posting more on this soon, it’s an exciting project that charts new territory by bringing NPR, APM, PRX, PRI and Public Interactive together to collaborate in developing applications for public radio. The aim is to manage the resulting code and related parts in an open source approach that invites other public media partners to make use of what we’re building.
The Millennials & GPRX on RadioMagOnline
Jones posted on Wednesday, October 29th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
The Millennials, that generation that grew up around the turn of the 21st century, have a whole different way of looking at the media. So how does radio connect with a generation that, as Matt Terrell writes in Reaching Millennials, is “no longer constrained to listen to whatever is on at the moment; we have audio at our fingertips — it is searchable, fast-forwardable, and subject to our whims?”
A former member of the Generation PRX Youth Editorial Board and producer leader at Savannah College of Art and Design’s SCAD Radio, Matt has insight into who’s reaching Millennials and valuable advice on how to do it. The vanguard case studies? NPR’s Next Generation Radio, PRX, GPRX and SCADRadio.org
“If you want to use new media tools and social networks, you have to respect them as the tools for social change and interaction like their Millennial creators view them. It’s a very common theme in new media research that users (especially Millennials) can sense a fakeness and distrust people who don’t use these tools in the right ways. The right way involves using the tools primarily for social uses rather than professional, and keeping a personal tone to created profiles and sites.”
Whether you’re i.m.ing six other people while you’re reading this, or still trying to figure out what i.m. is - Reaching Millennials on Radiomagonline is excellent food for thought.
NPR’s Next Generation PRX
admin posted on Wednesday, May 14th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
We’re big fans of Doug Mitchell and his work at NPR with Next Generation, and it’s great to see it get some more well-deserved attention by Mark Glaser at PBS’s Media Shift. As Mark mentions PRX has been working with Next Gen, and we’re hoping to find more ways to connect more directly with our youth-radio project Generation PRX.
Not surprisingly, those twentysomethings have also pushed NPR further into the digital realm, creating an eye-catching blog and using Public Radio Exchange (PRX), an online marketplace for radio reports, to get wider distribution for their work.
…
PRX, an online exchange for radio producers and programmers, has played an important role in giving wider exposure to the young radio journalists. Jake Shapiro, executive editor of PRX, told me there are about 128 NextGen stories up at PRX, and they’ve been licensed more than 60 times by stations that ran the content.“We made a concerted push to help get NextGen pieces on PRX, partly because too few of them saw the light of day on NPR programs and they are excellent pieces that stations have found lots of opportunities to air,” Shapiro said via email. “We also see great alignment between NextGen’s goals and PRX’s mission to help surface new voices and cultivate new talent…There’s a lot more that we could do together as part of a vital pipeline for new and diverse talent in public radio/media.”
Current on PRX
admin posted on Tuesday, May 6th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
Current has posted a long look at PRX in the wake of the MacArthur Award news, along with a nice sidebar linking to previous coverage and some highlights like Generation PRX and our Zeitfunk awards, which Current memorably describes as “a kitschy trophy topped with a shiny martial-arts practitioner frozen in mid-roundhouse kick”.
PRX launched in September 2003, the fruit of a brainstorm between SRG and independent producer Jay Allison. The idea was to use the Web to give station and independent producers a more convenient way to share work, while developing a deep catalog of pieces old and new.
….
The concept was “long tail” before Wired magazine editor Chris Anderson coined the term, says Jake Shapiro, PRX’s executive director since its inception. PRX recognized that “there was tremendous value in aggregating and making accessible some of the programs that have garnered so much energy, investment and work, rather than having them be ephemeral productions that air once or twice.”
…
Jeff Hansen, p.d. of KUOW/KXOT, praises PRX for its ease of use and for its promotion of independent producers, whom he believes public radio must support as “the next generation” of talent.
By empowering producers to handle their own distribution, he says, PRX may even be “the future of program distribution.” “What sense does it make to distribute someone else’s content, when that someone else can distribute themselves?” he says. “Why incur the cost of the middleman anymore, now that you have PRX?”
You can see the full Current coverage here.
New York Times on PRX
admin posted on Wednesday, April 30th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
PRX gets a mention in the New York Times piece on public radio’s hunt for new talent and new audiences.
Public radio “had an enormous surge in listening over about a 10-year period from the mid ’90s up through about 2003, principally driven by a huge response to public radio’s news and information programming,” said Tom Thomas, co-chief executive officer of the Station Resource Group, a public radio consortium. But since 2003 “the audience has essentially been flat,” he said.
To address this, the consortium recently received a Corporation for Public Broadcasting grant to identify ways to get the audience growing again, and “Everything is on the table,” Mr. Thomas said.
Last year some 1,400 people entered the Public Radio Talent Quest, an online search for new hosts run by the Public Radio Exchange, a Web site, prx.org, where independent radio producers market their content. None of the three winners — a science blogger, a slam poet and a nonprofit executive who is a storyteller — reflect that typical public radio sound, said Jake Shapiro, the exchange’s executive director.
GPRX on Youth Media Reporter
Genevieve posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
Generation PRX Coordinator Jones Franzel was interviewed for Youth Media Reporter’s first podcast and for “Making Networking Work for Youth Media.”
Looking to join a youth media network? Jones presents this advice in the article: “When possible, selecting a neutral organizer or leader, whether a funder or intermediary youth media organization, can take away perceived competitiveness or benefit among participating members. Generation PRX, an online youth radio exchange, aims to do just that by connecting a variety of youth radio producers virtually from across the country. ‘People can trust that we’re really motivated by promoting the entire field,’ Franzel said.”
Youth Media Reporter is a bi-monthly professional online journal that focuses on developing and sustaining the youth media field.
CPB Congratulates PRX on MacArthur Award
admin posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News, Press Releases | 1 Comment
http://www.cpb.org/pressroom/release.php?prn=643
For Immediate Release April 11, 2008
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Congratulates the Public Radio Exchange on its MacArthur Foundation Award
Washington, D.C. — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) congratulates the Public Radio Exchange (PRX) for receiving a MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions.
Established by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions recognizes and invests in small, emerging nonprofit organizations around the world that demonstrate exceptional creativity and effectiveness.
The MacArthur Foundation announced PRX was one of eight organizations in six countries to receive the award “by gathering and distributing new programming and using technological innovation to expand content choices, PRX is leading public radio to become more interactive, diverse and democratic.”
“PRX has transformed the way content creators deliver their product to the public radio marketplace,” said Pat Harrison, CPB president and CEO. “PRX has developed a unique service that has led public broadcasting along the pathway to emerging media and opened a pipeline of innovation that benefits stations and listeners. It’s fitting that they’ve been recognized for their creativity and leadership.”
About PRX: The Public Radio Exchange is an online marketplace for distribution, review and licensing of public radio programming. PRX is also a growing social network and community of listeners, producers and stations collaborating to reshape public radio. The mission of PRX is to create more opportunities for diverse programming of exceptional quality, interest and importance to reach more listeners.
About CPB: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a private, nonprofit corporation created by Congress in 1967, is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting. It helps support the operations of more than 1,000 locally-owned and -operated public television and radio stations nationwide, and is the largest single source of funding for research, technology, and program development for public radio, television, and related online services.
Boston Globe on PRX
admin posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 | Blog, PRX in the News | No Comments
http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/04/11/cambridge_nonprofit_wins_macarthur_award/
Cambridge nonprofit wins MacArthur award
By Clea Simon, Globe Correspondent | April 11, 2008
The Cambridge-based Public Radio Exchange will receive one of eight 2008 MacArthur Awards for Creative and Effective Institutions, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced yesterday. PRX, as the Cambridge nonprofit is called, serves as an Internet clearinghouse for radio producers and public radio stations. It provides access to new voices and makes it easier for producers and stations to connect and license one another’s work using an online base that handles everything from sampling shows to licensing.
“It’s a huge honor and a great endorsement,” says Jake Shapiro, PRX’s executive director. “We are trying to be a leader in what public broadcasting is doing, to be pioneers, and this is a huge boost to that role.”
The prizes, up to $500,000, are given to nonprofits that are driving significant change on a modest budget, according to the foundation. The winners, from six nations, will be honored June 12 at the foundation’s headquarters in Chicago. The seven other recipients for this year’s awards are: Tlachinollan, Centro de Derechos Humanos de la Montaña, in Mexico; Philadelphia’s Juvenile Law Center; Kazan Human Rights Center in the Republic of Tatarstan, Russian Federation; Legal Defence and Assistance Project in Lagos, Nigeria; Chicago’s Project Match; Sangath in Goa, India; and Tany Meva Foundation in Madagascar.
“We pick these winners from across all of our program interests,” says Elspeth A. Revere, vice president of the general program at the MacArthur Foundation. “One of our interests for close to 30 years has been public media.”
The foundation has previously supported PRX with two grants, viewing the small nonprofit as “an ingenious model of harnessing technology to bring more diverse, high-quality content into radio.”
PRX, which was launched in 2002, allows aspiring producers, stations, and individuals to sample and critique a variety of programs at prx.org. The organization has made more than 20,000 programs from approximately 1,000 producers available on the site since its inception, says Shapiro. PRX also helped organize last year’s Public Radio Talent Quest.
For PRX, the MacArthur award will bring growth and stability. The organization plans to put aside half of the expected award of $500,000 as a capital reserve. “We’ll be investing in our future,” says Shapiro, “which is very difficult for nonprofits to do.”
Approximately $150,000 will go toward technology. This will include updating and expanding the Internet platform that makes the program exchange possible.
“We have thousands of pieces on the site,” says Shapiro. “You might want to do [a playlist] of favorite environmental stories or rainy-day pieces. If I’m working at a radio station, I might be more able to find programs I can then use.”
The remaining $100,000 will launch a content fund. This will offer money to revise or update public radio programs, which Shapiro calls “reversioning.” A small grant from this fund, for example, could help a producer digitize or re-edit radio programs to make them accessible to more stations. It could also help producers adapt audio from film or television documentaries, making them viable as radio shows or podcasts.
“It’s a neat way for us to do more of what we want to do,” says Shapiro, “which is not just distribute for radio broadcasts, but for a range of platforms to reach into the world.”
© Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
