National Public Radio

News and information, programming, and engineering - npr is aninternationally recognized producer and distributor of news, digital media, programming, and an industry leader in soundgathering and audio production. During this fiscal year, npr'sbroadcast programming reached a weekly audience of 27.4 million people.about 98.5% of the u.s. Population is within the listening area of one or more stations that carry npr programming. Npr produces and/or distributes 26 news, talk, music and entertainment broadcast programs, and 15 podcast-only programs (approximately 10.1 million average unique weekly users of npr-produced podcast programs), and 11.5 million unique visitors to npr.org weekly, marking an increase over the past year of 51% for podcasts and a decrease of 3% for npr.org. Smart speaker streaming weekly audience increased 60% from the past fiscal year. Additionally, npr programming is heard on smart speakers, satellite radio, hd radio, itunes radio, on member station web streams, and internationally. Npr also broadcasts its programming to the u.s. Military and their families through the armed forces radio network and other international services. Some programs produced and/or distributed by npr include: morning edition, all things considered, weekend edition,fresh air, the ted radio hour, ask me another, 1a, wait wait...don't tell me!, here & now, invisibilia, and npr newscasts 24 hours a day.npr's digital media division expands npr's public service by offering npr content free of charge on the web, mobile devices, via distribution partnerships with third-party platforms and on other emerging digital channels. Monthly, npr's digital content reaches approximately 34,260,000 users. That content includes real-time news reports, live audio streams, live video streams, on-demand downloads and streams of npr and member station audio, on-demand video segments, archival audio spanning more than a decade, original text stories and photos, additional information and insight into reports airing on npr programs, commentary, and content exclusive to the internet. Some of the division's projects this year included vetting and selecting a content management system which will replace the systems currently in use by npr and member stations, beginning the migration of stations currently using a legacy service to the new one, expanding the placement of station headlines and stories on npr.org and the collecting and sharing of email addresses with stations, planning and designing a new mobile application that will combine the features of the two npr-branded apps currently in the market, and launching a new function on the amazon alexa platform that enables the continuous play of audio segments. The division also launched a year-long "public radio incubation lab" charged with addressing strategic challenges that confront our digital business and prototyping practical solutions. Structured as a rotation program comprising staff from npr as well as member stations, the lab focused on new approaches to supporting station membership-solicitation on npr's digital platforms. In partnership with pbs and two major public tv-radio stations, wgbh and kqed, npr helped secure initial funding from the corporation for public broadcasting to help support licensing and implementation costs of the shared content management system described above as well as a "single-sign-on" feature that can enable public media organizations to gather more personalized data from digital audiences in order to engage them and activate them toward membership. These two projects are fundamental to the vision of a shared digital infrastucture that can support the public media system, create efficiencies of scale and cost savings around commodity technologies, enable the development of new products and services more nimbly, and allow stations to focus on mission-derived local content, brand positioning, and revenue development.

Npr's distribution division (distribution) operates and managesthe public radio satellite system (prss). Prss is a combinedsatellite and internet content distribution service for publicradio programming and related digital content. In addition to itsregular operations, distribution manages grant-funded nationalproject initiatives in support of the prss activities. Relateddigital content is comprised of npr's content as well as contentfrom other program producers and independent radio producers. Theprss is available to public radio stations, regardless of size,income, organization, or programming affiliation. The annualoperations of the prss are supported by the fees paid by bothpublic and commercial clients for their use of the prss.

Npr's membership consisted of 264 non-commercial licensees, operating a network of hundreds of associated public radio stations. When 84 non-member public radio licensees and their associated stations are also included, a grand total of 1,092 public radio stations broadcast programming licensed from npr. Npr member organizations include long established, highly regarded educational institutions (including many top public and private colleges and universities), as well as some of the largest, most influential station-based public media organizations in the united states. Npr's financial and organizational strength derives in significant measure from the strength of its members and the npr member network as a whole. Npr serves and collaborates with member stations in newsgathering and reporting, program development, cultural events, community engagement, fundraising, radio and digital distribution, and representation on issues critical to public broadcasting.