Programs/Content

Radio Ambulante steers Spanish-language pubradio in new direction

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Radio Ambulante, an ambitious monthly radio show and podcast which hopes to revolutionize Spanish-language radio, launched its pilot episode today. Radio Ambulante (which roughly translates to “radio on the move”) is the brainchild of acclaimed Peruvian-American writer Daniel Alarcón, whose novel Lost City Radio, was named Best Novel of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post, also claiming the 2009 International Literature Prize. Also on the Radio Ambulante team are Martina Castro (managing editor of KALW News), Mandalit del Barco (general assignment correspondent at NPR West), entrepreneur Carolina Guererro, and journalist Annie Correal, whose work has aired on NPR, WNYC and This American Life. The show is based out of KALW-FM in San Francisco, and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting serves as the program’s 501(c)3 fiscal sponsor. The pilot episode, “Moving: Migration, Exile, and Travel,” weaves together four stories centered around “moving,” a thematic structure similar to that of This American Life.

PBS

Puerto Rico’s WIPR: adiós to PBS

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The latest station to leave PBS is a production powerhouse, but one not fully integrated into the nation’s English-dominated public TV system. Puerto Rico TV — WIPR, licensed to Puerto Rico Public Broadcasting Corp., which is controlled by the commonwealth government — dropped its PBS membership July 1. The station in San Juan sometimes produces up to nine hours of content a day, including public affairs, culture, sports, music, talk and food shows, as well as the island’s only 24/7 news channel, all in Spanish. It aired only the children’s shows from the PBS lineup, including the limited number with a Spanish SAP (secondary audio program) soundtrack. The station wanted Spanish versions of the rest of the PBS Kids shows.