PRX: Online Marketplace for Radio Programming

Intro by Bill Densmore, 2008-2009 Donald W. Reynolds Fellow

Radio and newspapers used to claim defined times and spaces. But now we read print anytime we wish, on a screen. And increasingly the podcast encroaches on scheduled radio. Reading and listening endure, but their form and even their function may be shifting.

The Public Radio Exchange in Cambridge, Mass., is at the bleeding edge of understanding how the sounds of radio will shift in time via the Internet -- and how to pay for it. Will listeners subscribe to a single program, a story, or a virtual channel? Will they do so through their favorite radio station, or directly? These are some of the questions that PRX Managing Director John Barth and his colleagues are thinking about -- and beginning to engineer around.

Public Radio Exchange (www.prx.org) is an online marketplace for distribution, review and licensing of public radio programming. PRX also calls itself a growing social network and community of listeners, producers, and stations collaborating to reshape public radio.