Public Radio Exchange Site Launches

TheSync writes "The Public Radio Exchange web site has opened its doors. Radio show producers can sign up to upload programming for peer-review and electronic distribution to public radio stations that like the content. Avid listeners can sign up (for free) to listen and review potential programming. PRX just received a $1.5 million grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and they are looking for a summer intern in Boston."

Comments

Clear Channel Dropped Stern..

[artlu]

Clear Channel dropped Howard Stern from my local radio stations. I used to listen every morning while getting ready at home. Maybe we can do live streams of radio from all over the country via this protocol, and I can get through Clear Channel's "indecency measures."

GroupShares.com

Huh.

[Anonymous Coward]

This post seems a little too late. I work at a public radio station in ohio and have been using PRX for about 5 months or so now. I wonder why it took so long for this to be posted.

Re:Huh.

[strictnein]

good point... it should have been posted at least 3 or 4 times now

Re:Huh.

[Cpyder]

I wonder why it took so long for this to be posted.

You must be new here.

PS: don't worry about the lack of attention, now that you're in the collective mind of the /. audience, expect a duplicate of this story in a few days. That should make up for it

Re:I wonder . . .

[the_2nd_coming]

I'm sad that they do not use Quicktime. but I am sure you want Ogg or something like that.

Re:I wonder . . .

[garcia]

Am I the only one that sees something wrong with donation and tax-subsidized radio being locked up in these sorts of formats?

No! For God's sake boy! What are you thinking?! Just because you pay for it either directly or indirectly doesn't mean you should have free access to the content.

Remember, that would be communist.

Re:I wonder . . .

[Mikkeles]

'Avid listeners can sign up (for free) to listen and review potential programming.'

So: with mods this is /Radio?

Re:I wonder . . .

[riptide_dot]

What timing. Wired just had an article on Friday about the RIAA warning that digital radio needs to have DRM built in or it "could lead to unfettered song copying".

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but what would happen if a garage band uploaded their song to the PRX website and then later signed a contract with the RIAA? What would happen to that song? Would it still be allowed to be played on PRX type sites?

I imagine that the contract would spell stuff like this out for the band and the RIAA, but what about the PRX that already had a copy of it? How would the contract apply to them?

Online Radio Content?

[fastdecade]

A bit OT, but are there any indexes or search engines for online radio content?

Seems to me online radio once had a lot of potential, maybe still does, but has gone nowhere in the past few years. I thought it would pick up with every man and his dog carrying an MP3 player, but apparently not.

Re:Online Radio Content?

[schmaltz]

Several sites come to mind:

http://webjay.org - Calls itself "Listener Created Radio", and it aggregates quite a bit of radio and non-radio MP3, Real and windows content. You can create playlists of audio/video content already hosted someplace. When you click "play" on a playlist, it generates a playlist for your player. Worth checking out.

http://www.radio-locator.com/ - They track radio stations and list their stream links too

http://www.radio4all.net/ - Anybody can submit radio content to them, it's sort of a precursor to PRX but a lot less middle-of-the-road.

Summer Intern position

[AgentPhunk]

From their site:

Will introduce you to the high-powered, creatively satisfying, poorly compensated world of public radio. May compensate you. May also not compensate you. Will provide you with an immediate list of marginally interesting things to do, a list that will grow exponentially more interesting as we discover how competent you are. Will offer exposure to people who are famous, or at least as famous as you can be if you got famous by being on public radio.

Subsitute /public radio/ with /your job here/

Hey, at least they're honest.

Nothing quite new

[Platinum Dragon]

Hard-left radio stations have been using the A-Infos Radio Project and the IMC Radio Project for some time to distribute content. The quality of the productions range from excellent to useless, much like anything else. The productions are almost all politically-oriented, so not having read the article (a grand Slashdot tradition), I don't know if PRX also carries a larger proportion of music and PSAs.

bout time

[akb]

Radio4all and Indymedia have been providing space to upload radio programs for years. And they don't even charge stations to download the shows.

I would estimate the yearly expenses of those projects to be an order of magnititude less than $1.5m. Oneworld Radio also offers upload space for programs and is networked internationally. I would guess their costs are a bit less than $1.5m but in a similar ballpark.

Coupla responses from PRX site editor

[brendangreeley]

While our tech guys are desperately trying to deal with a spike in slashdot-driven traffic, I'm going to try to answer some questions and dispel some rumors.

1. PRX does not distribute music. As you all know, this is a sticky subject and thus conveniently outside of our brief.

2. As befits a publicly-funded site, anyone can listen to pieces and offer a review. We encourage it. Like the great Soviet enterprise we are, we demand it. Submit.

3. It is possible to believe strongly in both public radio and the free market. They are not mutually exclusive, nor is public broadcasting the sole province of liberals.

4. PRX is not Internet radio. We use a web platform to allow nonprofit radio stations to browse for content that they can license, download and broadcast.

5. We're in the midst of rethinking how parts of the site work, particularly the search function and reviews/moderation. We welcome comments. The relationship between the popular vote and the judiciary may or may not be germane to this discussion but hey, it's your Constitution too.

Re:Just make sure to make your material

[Kick the Donkey]

So, just because it's on, or sponsored by NPR, means that it's liberal? Is that your take?

Have you ever listened to NPR? Or do you just regurgitate what FOX News tells you? Because that's really a source of non-biased coverage. You know, just because people keep saying the media is liberal doesn't make it true.

NPR is probably one of the more interesting news agencies out there. You'll here stories there that you won't hear anywhere else. Not because of a political stance, but because they are not trying to get ratings to get advertisers. There stories are much more interesting for those with half a brain.

Besides, the current administration deserves as much heat as can be brought on them. They've gotten a very easy ride from this supposed liberal media.