Background
In the United States, PRI exclusively distributes such well-known programming as This American Life and the BBC World Service to public radio stations. Among its many high-profile programs is the award-winning global news program The World, which PRI co-produces with the BBC and WGBH Boston. Programs on PRI — sometimes mis-attributed to National Public Radio — are produced by a variety of organizations, including PRI in the United States and other countries. PRI, along with NPR and American Public Media, is one of the largest program producers and distributors of public radio programming in the United States. PRI offers over 400 hours of programming each week to stations and listeners. According to their website, "the mission of Public Radio International is to engage listeners with distinctive programming that provides information, insights, and cultural experiences essential to understanding a diverse, interdependent world." As a result, PRI's focus on global news/journalism and cultural perspectives programming forms a key point of differentiation from its competitors, both within and outside public broadcasting.
Approximately 800 radio station affiliates and other audio venues broadcast, stream and download PRI programs. According to the 2002 Arbitron ratings, 15.2 million people listened to PRI programming each week.
PRI's programs have won numerous awards for quality and innovation, including the DuPont-Columbia Award, Scripps Howard Award for Excellence in Electronic Media/Radio, George M. Foster Peabody Award, Golden Reel Award and the Gabriel Award.
PRI programs are also available via podcast from PRI.ORG, iTunes and iTunesU, PRI program sites, and via mobile phones including the iPhone. PRI's podcasts consistently rate in the iTunes top 100, including This American Life, Selected Shorts, The World's Technology Podcast, Bullseye with Jesse Thorn and Studio 360. PRI was one of the first radio podcasters in the United States, when its program The World launched its popular Technology Podcast on February 11, 2005, hosted by Clark Boyd. PRI programs are also available on its 24.7 programming stream on PRI.ORG, as well as on web simulcast streams of public radio station broadcast signals.
PRI programs are distributed through North America on satellite radio. PRI had its own 24-hour channel on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 136, which was discontinued in September 2006. As a response, XM Radio added more PRI programming to its own public radio channel, XM Public Radio. PRI pursues its satellite radio strategy in concert with other public radio stations. In 2002, PRI formed American Public Radio, in partnership with Chicago Public Radio, in order to better pursue strategies within the satellite radio realm. Not long after, WGBH Boston joined the partnership. WNYC New York joined about a year later.
PRI programming receives funding from station fees, corporate underwriting, and individual and corporate grants. Less than 2% of the overall operating budget comes from United States government agencies.
PRI recognizes as its core principles:
- the central role played by diversity in our nation's past and its importance to our future;
- the urgent need to understand connections between American life and cultures around the globe;
- the responsibility of public media to encourage the exchange of ideas and search for common principles fundamental to a civil society; and
- the power of sound and of the spoken word to engage the mind and nurture the human spirit.
Read more about this topic: Public Radio International
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