Public Radio Exchange

And an App for Vermont Public Radio!

Rekha posted on Wednesday, September 28th, 2011 | Blog, PRX Projects | No Comments

A Mobile App for WQXR Classical

Rekha posted on Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 | PRX Projects | No Comments

Please welcome the latest addition to the PRX apps family: WQXR Classical for iPhone. It’s the first product of a big mobile partnership with New York Public Radio, so get ready for some more mobile goodness coming soon.

Read more about the WQXR app on the new PRX Apps blog.

Exploring the Depths of KCRW Music Mine

Rekha posted on Tuesday, September 20th, 2011 | PRX Projects, Tech | No Comments

We’re still buzzing from the excitement of getting the KCRW Music Mine iPad app out into the wild. The app exemplifies our desire to bring public media to mobile and tablets in new and amazing ways. Mark Ramsey says it well in this review.

With the launch flurry settling down, we’ve had some time to reflect on how the app came about. It was quite a process. Head over to the PRX Labs blog for an interview with Matt MacDonald, PRX’s Director of Project Management, on the concept and design, where he says things like:

One goal for us was to encourage musical exploration and delight so some of our interaction decisions basically force you to try out music that you might not be familiar with. We made sure to encourage that by not adding features like search or sorting and filtering tools.

Read Exploring The Depths Of Music Mine on PRX Labs.

Introducing the WGBH App

Rekha posted on Wednesday, August 24th, 2011 | PRX, PRX Projects | No Comments

Latest in our growing collection of mobile apps is WGBH, News and Culture for iPhone. This app brings all of the Boston public media station’s offerings from across TV, radio, and web into one elegant experience.

• Listen live to WGBH radio, their classical, Celtic, and jazz streams, plus WCAI from The Cape and Islands
• Watch episodes from TV programs including Beat the Press, Basic Black, and High School Quiz Show
• Get radio and TV programming schedules so you know when to tune in, or catch past episodes in the app itself
• Read the latest local, national, and world news
• View recipes from top chefs and other food-related articles
• See a calendar of upcoming events
• And much more.

Actually, let’s elaborate on the “more”. There’s Assignments, inviting you to tell WGBH’s newsroom what’s news in your town. With Benefits, WGBH members can browse and redeem local discounts using a virtual member card generated in the app (you have to use it to believe how nifty it is).

Of course, to use those amazing features you’ll have to tear yourself away from WGBH’s wonderful content, from radio mainstays like The Takeaway, The World, and Fresh Air to TV hits like Frontline, NOVA, and American Experience.

Get WGBH, News and Culture for your iPhone now.

The WGBH app is a customized version of the PRX station app codebase, which enables us to streamline development time and costs while giving stations apps that represent their unique identities. We’ve got more iPhone — and Android — station apps on the way. Maybe yours, too? Contact us to learn more.

PRX wins two Communicator Awards

Genevieve posted on Wednesday, June 15th, 2011 | Blog, PRX Projects | No Comments

Great news! PRX submitted the This American Life App to the Communicator Awards last fall, and it was recently announced that the app won an Award of Excellence (the highest honor) in Mobile Apps – Music/Audio. We also won an Award of Distinction for the WBUR App in Mobile Apps – News.

Congrats to our team and to the amazing folks we worked with at TAL and WBUR!

“With thousands of entries received from across the US and around the world, the Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring the creative excellence for communications professionals…

“The Communicator Awards are judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), a 550+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media.”

Sounds good to us!

Story Exchange and new models for local news

John posted on Tuesday, June 14th, 2011 | Blog, PRX Projects | 1 Comment

The latest report from the FCC on The Information Needs of Local Communities paints a grim picture about the state of local news.

Local TV news is pretty thin and getting thinner. And while there is some praise for the ambition of local public radio, the report makes clear that resources don’t match the vision.

PRX, with the help of the Knight News Challenge, is stepping in to do its part to change the situation.

We have partnered with Spot.us, a real pioneer in the area of crowd funding, and Louisville Public Media, to launch Story Exchange.

This modest idea shows some early promise:

What if local public radio stations with loyal news audiences were able to pitch ambitious story and project ideas directly to listeners? Say a station wanted to propose a documentary, or a series about a pollution issue; maybe a special and a talk show about an area of education reform.

But, money was the barrier: Not enough staff to fill in on a long project, no money for a researcher to do necessary leg work, or simply no staff reporter capable of doing the production?

Story Exchange helps solve the problem. Here’s how:

• The station creates a series of story pitches and makes them directly to the audience. And each pitch has a modest price attached to complete the assignment.
• Those pitches appear on the station website, and they get promoted on air, in emails to listeners and on the local talk show.
• The station website is a doorway for listeners to pledge micro-amounts ($5, $10 at a time, for example).
• Once the goal is reached, the money goes to the station.
• And, the station completes the project and makes it available on the web.

Who benefits?

• Listeners do – the ones who showed interest in that area of coverage get to directly support and hear the impact of their commitment.
• The station does – it gets the nominal additional resources to do something it might otherwise not be able to accomplish
• The community does – communities of interest act individually to show their support for a KEY station activity. If the journalism is good, everyone benefits.
• And this sometimes ethereal notion of engagement becomes tangible.

Does it work?

Yes. PRX watched Spot.us for some time and saw that freelance print reporters and some small public stations were able to raise money for local reporting.

We figured, let’s turn loose the power of stations as centers of local journalism and give listeners the incentives to easily make a difference by supporting stories and issues they cared about.

Station editors and managers are always in control of the pitches and which stories are completed. Best of all, the donors are identified and their contributions small enough that no one person has the power to influence coverage.

And, it IS working in our first test market of Louisville.

Within a few days of posting the pitch for coverage about the health risks of coal dust exposure, enough listeners pledged a total of $250 to get that series completed.

There are more pitches out there from Louisville Public Media on a bridge controversy, school management problems and more.

PRX is looking for more stations that want to engage in this experiment.

What’s it take?

• A commitment by the station to local programming and promotion.
• An engaged audience.
• A strong news department with fresh ideas.
• A willingness to talk about the pitches, how the process works, and why this project is important for local journalism.

Interested?

Contact John Barth at john – at – prx – dot – org and we can help you get started.

Remix is on WREM 88.7FM

Emily posted on Monday, May 16th, 2011 | Blog, PRX, PRX Projects | No Comments

Today Public Radio Remix — our 24/7 stream of audio awesomeness — went live on WREM 88.1FM in Canton, NY. WREM is a brand new acquisition of North Country Public Radio, owned and operated by St. Lawrence University. Take a look at their spiffy Remix webpage, which has current and upcoming playlists, links to each story, a feed of the Public Radio Remix blog, and more.

WREM joins KPBZ in Spokane, WA as our second terrestrial station carrying Public Radio Remix.

We want to thank North Country Public Radio Program Director Jackie Sauter, Chief Engineer Bob Sauter and General Manager Ellen Rocco for making this launch as easy as pie. We’re thrilled!

Tags: Emily, Remix

Same Great Taste

Emily posted on Friday, May 13th, 2011 | Blog, PRX, PRX Projects | 1 Comment

PRX’s 24/7 radio stream — formerly known as REMIX Radio and formerly broadcast on XM 136 — underwent a few changes last week.

New Satellite Channel: 123

The first thing to know is that our XM channel has changed to XM 123. Not bad numbers, right?

We’re not the only ones with a new channel. After Sirius and XM merged in 2008, SiriusXM has finally remapped their channel lineup to integrate stations from both networks into a single program schedule. It all went down last week.

New Name: Public Radio Remix

To go along with our shiny new SiriusXM Channel, PRX is also announcing a new name for our 24/7 stream of public radio goodness: Public Radio Remix. We liked our old name, REMIX Radio, but rather than eschew our public radio heritage, we want to embrace it. We are Public Radio Remix, public radio that sounds and feels decidedly different, but is still very much, public radio. Public radio rocks.

Although our blog has moved to publicradioremix.org and our XM station is now parked at XM 123, we are still streaming from the same place online and broadcasting on the air in Spokane, WA on KPBZ. Not listening yet? Come get some Remix.

Get In Touch

Are you a radio maker? Submit your stories to Public Radio Remix.

Are you listening to Public Radio Remix? Let us know what you think at remix (at) prx (dot) org.

Tags: Emily

Mobile App Picks from the PRXperts

Emily posted on Tuesday, April 19th, 2011 | Blog, PRX, PRX Projects, Tech | 1 Comment

We’re pretty into our phones over here at PRX. And that’s as it should be, I suppose, as many of us spend our days conceiving, coding and promoting mobile apps for public radio.

A couple months ago Radio Diaries producer Joe Richman — equipped with his first-ever iPhone — asked me what PRX’s favorite apps are. I put the question to my colleagues, and return with the following list of our favorite mobile apps.

Matt	John	Robert	Rekha	Jake	Chris	Farski	Kerri	Roman	Jones

Our big list of favorite apps:

Tags: Emily

Enabling This American Life’s Mobile Takeover

Rekha posted on Thursday, April 7th, 2011 | PRX Projects | 1 Comment

Beloved public radio show This American Life just blew through another milestone in its plan for mobile domination.

Announcing the This American Life app for iPad!

Our PRX tech team developed it, we had a lot of fun doing it. Just like we had when we built their iPhone and Android apps.

The iPad app has everything the other apps have, and more, including:

• Save up to THREE episodes for offline listening
• Play and share individual stories, not just entire episodes
• Not sure where to put your eyes while listening? Put ‘em on the Twitter feed of all TAL mentions
• A comic strip about the show. But of course!

This American Life’s blog has screenshots to whet your appetite.