Jake Shapiro of PRX is giving a Berkman lunchtime talk.

PRX is the Public Radio Exchange, a service that enables public radio stations to find audio reports posted by producers. Public radio’s audience is increasing (currently 30M listeners per week). How can it embrace the new ecology? Program directors have been gatekeepers, but many are open to the idea that through the Net they could provide more than 24 hours worth of programming per day. (You can see Public Radio’s statement of values here.) They feel threatened by time-shifting, the growth of

Chris Lydon asks if there’s any point in going through the stations instead of just posting podcasts. Jake, who was a producer of Chris’ previous radio show, says that it’s not an either/or. “Public radio is primed to plug in.”

Chris: Have you thought about PRX becoming a packager of podcasts, filtering the thousands of them?

Jake: That’s what we’re doing. PRX hopes to have many people creating playlists.

Rebecca MacKinnon: You could do Greensboro101 but for podcasting.

Much discussion ensues. A few random points:

Jake: Program directors can become a “feed-j.”

Jake: You could have the pledge drive feed that interrupts and asks you to buy flowers for your mother, or you could pay to get the pledge-free feed. Or there could be subscriptions and/or sponsorships.

Jake wonders what the legality and good practices of the redistribution of feeds will be. He says the only terms of use for a feed that he’s seen is on NPR.org. He points out that Cory recently blogged a similar question. [Technorati tag: berkman]

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