Programs/Content

With Jazz Night, WBGO and NPR Music will take fans into venues to listen, watch and chat

By |

NPR and WBGO-FM in Newark, N.J., are teaming up to produce Jazz Night in America, a series of radio broadcasts paired with live, high-quality video webcasts of jazz performances from venues across the country. The series will debut in April 2014, said Anya Grundmann, e.p. of NPR Music, who discussed the project with jazz programmers during a Sept. 18 conference session at the PRPD conference. Videos will stream on NPR’s and WBGO’s websites, and stations will be able to install a video player platform on their own sites to present the webcasts with their stations’ brands prominently displayed. The series will mark the most prominent visual presentation of live jazz performance in U.S. broadcasting since CBS presented concerts in the 1950s, said Josh Jackson, v.p. of content at WBGO.

System/Policy

NEA announces 2013 media arts grants; OVEE and AIR projects among recipients

By |

The National Endowment of the Arts announced $4.68 million in funding to 76 media-arts projects April 23, including new grantees such as the Online Video Engagement Experience (OVEE) developed with CPB funding, a new initiative from the Association of Independents in Radio called Spectrum America and Sonic Trace, a multimedia production at KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., that was created through AIR’s recently concluded Localore project. For a second year, the NEA will continue to support projects that use digital technologies to go beyond traditional broadcasting platforms. In its announcement, the endowment highlighted a $100,000 grant to OVEE, a digital platform that allows web users to interact while watching PBS and local station content. The Independent Television Service developed the technology with support from CPB. AIR also received $100,000 for Spectrum America, a project that will pair media artists with public stations as they experiment with “new approaches to storytelling.”

Sonic Trace, a co-production at KCRW initiated through AIR’s 2012–2013 Localore initiative, received a direct NEA grant of $75,000 to continue exploring the experience of Latino immigrants. NEA also backed digital media projects at NPR, providing $100,000 for music programming and multimedia content.

Programs/Content

Pubradio backs musical acts at SXSW festival

By |

Public radio will be well-represented at the musical portion of the annual South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, March 13–16. The NPR Music showcase March 13 will feature the Yeah Yeah Yeahs performing new songs from their forthcoming album Mosquito, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Mexican rockers Café Tacvba and others. Audio of the live set at 8 p.m. Eastern will be offered for station broadcast and distributed online; NPR Music will also offer a live video stream through its website and mobile apps. Café Tacvba will put in double duty and appear in a March 14 showcase arranged by NPR Music’s Alt.Latino channel, along with Molotov, also from Mexico. Rounding out the lineup is Bajofondo, a band led by Argentine composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who has scored films including Brokeback Mountain and The Motorcycle Diaries.