Dear colleagues,
It’s been 10 months since I have moved into the Distribution leadership role at American Public Media, and I am well settled in; I appreciate all your support throughout the transition.
Spring is mostly upon us and with it comes our annual pricing updates. Today the new program rates are live on the apmstations.org website. Today and throughout this week, the APM Station Relations Representatives will be sending out individual email communications, outlining your customized carriage and pricing.
I want to take this opportunity to update you on some of the recent happenings with the programming available from APM. Here are some of the highlights:
• Marketplace audience continues to grow with the latest survey showing nearly 10 million weekly listeners. Those audiences enjoyed more than a dozen live Marketplace broadcasts from Miami to Chicago to South Carolina. Marketplace also enhanced its business technology coverage with veteran host and reporter David Brancaccio, who for years has focused on the effects of technology on the changing economy, including his series “Robots Ate My Job” in 2012. In 2014, Marketplace will be celebrating 25 years on the air and plans are already in the making for an exciting quarter-of-a-century anniversary year.
• We’ve enjoyed getting to know our new partner, the BBC World Service. What an incredible global news and information machine we have at our disposal for our audiences. The breadth and depth of the content that is available to all of you from this 24×7 service continues to astound and ranges from science, health, beliefs and human interest stories to entertainment, music and many other unique programs. You will be getting more information about new, more efficient ways to access all this robust content very soon.
• You may know that we have launched two new programs: Wits and The Dinner Party Download. These new program websites (witsradio.org and dinnerpartydownload.org) highlight the strong consumer engagement the shows have created. Thank you to all of you who have made the commitment to carrying these new programs; we are encouraged and excited by their growing popularity.
• A Prairie Home Companion continues to delight and entertain audiences with more than 30 live broadcasts each year.
• To augment its exciting and useful on-air programming, The Splendid Table just published its first e-book, Eating In with Lynne Rossetto Kasper, Weekend Menus and Worknight Encores, which is now available for download. You can find it on iTunes, Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble or via splendidtable.org.
• Finally, we are improving our apmstations.org site to enable easier access to relevant information. You no longer have to enter a username and password to access general information on the site. The site will “stream” all new APM programming news and information as soon as possible. We will continue to update you through our regular Monthly Station Updates, as well as key programming information via the Content Depot.
As valued APM affiliate partners, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for your continued support of our programming. We could not deliver great programming to audiences without your decisions to carry our programs and we sincerely thank you!
I hope you check out our site and sign up for our updates. If you have feedback about the site, please email Kris Peters, the blog master. And please remember, you can also follow us on Twitter @apmstations.
Sincerely,
Nancy Cassutt
Managing Director, Distribution
American Public Media