CPB, foundations return with $2.7 mil aid for PRX
Public Radio Exchange is expanding its work in content distribution and programming with $2.7 million in multiyear grants announced Sept. 9 — $1.5 million from CPB, $900,000 from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and $300,000 from the Ford Foundation.
“It’s truly extraordinary to have all three of these funders come together and to get their endorsement for the work we’re doing,” Jake Shapiro, c.e.o., told Current. The grantmakers had supported PRX from its start as a project of pubradio’s Station Resource Group and Atlantic Public Media.
The nonprofit, an online marketplace for public radio programs since 2003, has not only started creating and distributing radio series such as The Moth Radio Hour, but has also become a leading developer of mobile apps for pubcasters.
New initiatives include PRX Networks, which helps station newsrooms share files for collaborative reporting, and Remix Radio, an experimental XM Satellite Radio channel and Internet stream that Spokane Public Radio is trying as a terrestrial FM channel (separate story).
CPB President Patricia Harrison cited Remix Radio in announcing the corporation’s two-year, $1.5 million grant, which also provides general support to PRX.
The MacArthur Foundation, which saluted PRX in 2008 with its Award for Creative and Effective Institutions, gave $900,000 across three years.
The Ford Foundation provided a one-year grant of $300,000 for PRX as it “continues to open the door for new voices in public media and beyond,” said Orlando Bagwell, director of Ford’s freedom-of-expression grantmaking.
Web page posted Oct. 5, 2010
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