$10 Million to NY Public Radio

From the New York Times:

Not all Mondays are bad.  For New York Public Radio’s stations WNYC, WQXR, and NJ Public Radio, this Monday is one to celebrate.  Most of a $10 million grant from the Greene Foundation

… is earmarked to support the development of digital operations, including a new feature called “Discover” on the WNYC mobile app. Designed originally with offline underground subway riders in mind, the feature will generate custom downloadable playlists for users who punch in the topics that interest them and the amount of time they want to listen. It will go live on Monday.

Developed in house, the feature will save listeners the trouble of searching for podcasts of public radio shows they already like. Perhaps as important, it will help WNYC introduce users to content they may not be familiar with. It will also keep listeners within the WNYC ecosystem, where they can be encouraged to contribute financially.

They’re claiming it’s the largest grant ever to a public radio station, though that’s a bit of hyperbole.  For one thing, NYPR is not “a station.”  It’s a network of stations and media platforms.  And the $213 million from the Kroc estate to NPR a while back was an order of magnitude larger.

But $10 million is a chunk of change for a forward-looking group of people who haven’t been afraid to embrace new ideas for on public radio.  I am a strong believer that to survive, radio needs to be less conservative, more culturally diverse, and more interactive, which is where NYPR has been headed for a long time with its fabulous performance space, Q2, podcasts, and nationally distributed programs.  You go, guys.  Keep doing great work.

About Marty Ronish

Marty Ronish is an independent producer of classical music radio programs. She currently produces the Chicago Symphony Orchestra broadcasts that air 52 weeks a year on more than 400 stations and online at www.cso.org. She also produces a radio series called "America's Music Festivals," which presents live music from some of the country's most dynamic festivals. She is a former Fulbright scholar and co-author of a catalogue of Handel's autograph manuscripts.

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