Programs/Content

Two more feeds syndicate jazz to public radio

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Public radio stations shopping for a plug-and-play jazz stream now have double the options to consider, with two newcomers to the field offering mainstream jazz services. Last month KPLU in Seattle/Tacoma announced that it will soon offer its Jazz24 stream, which it now broadcasts online and locally on an HD channel, to stations around the country. KPLU says the channel now draws a monthly web audience of 100,000 listeners, 90 percent outside the Seattle area. Meanwhile, some former hosts and creators of JazzWorks, a service that changed hands in May along with Pittsburgh’s WDUQ-FM, are now offering a jazz service under the name of Pubradio Network, competing with their old channel. Add those to the incumbents — JazzWorks, now operated by WDUQ’s buyer, Essential Public Media, and the Jazz Satellite Network from Chicago’s WFMT.

Quick Takes

Pittsburgh’s all-news startup gets an assist from CPB

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CPB is backing development of Essential Public Media, the nonprofit whose purchase of Pittsburgh’s WDUQ is pending before the FCC. At the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference July 14, CPB President Patricia Harrison announced a $250,000 grant to help Essential establish its digital journalism newsroom. “We are confident this will be a model for public media news operations across the country,” she said. Essential began managing day-to-day operations of WDUQ July 1, adopting an all-news format and reducing jazz programming to a six-hour weekend slot on its FM channel while it plays its syndicated service JazzWorks full-time on the Web and on an HD Radio digital multicast channel. The station’s editorial team has begun exploring possible editorial collaborations with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and PublicSource, an investigative-news startup that launched with foundation backing this spring, according to Lee Ferraro, manager of Pittsburgh’s WYEP, a partner in the repurposed WDUQ.