Articles by

Jake Shapiro

  • Article

    Radiotopia expanding and evolving with new Knight support

    Published May 12, 2015 by

    Jake Shapiro is CEO of Public Radio Exchange (PRX), an online marketplace for public radio programming. Today Knight Foundation is announcing new support for PRX’s Radiotopia project, a collective of story-driven shows that set a Kickstarter record in 2014. Radiotopia has been a remarkable success since launching just over a year ago. The network has accelerated in a short time, now nearing 7.5 million monthly downloads across 11 shows, anchored by “99% Invisible,” the breakout show on design hosted and produced by Roman Mars. Today we are announcing $1 million in new support from Knight Foundation to help take the network to the next level of impact. Radiotopia has played a pivotal role at the epicenter of the newly expanding galaxy of podcasts. Our goal has been to create a new model for helping independent producers make their best work, reach audiences across new digital and mobile platforms, and generate sustainable revenue to reinvest in the shows and the network itself.
  • Article

    Why PRX, Knight created an accelerator for public media

    Published January 19, 2012 by

    The following is written by Jake Shapiro, CEO of Public Radio Exchange. It is cross-posted from PBS MediaShift. We announced PRX's partnership with the Knight Foundation to create the Public Media Accelerator about a month ago. Since then, it's become clear that the accelerator concept is new to many people in the non-profit and public media worlds, even as tech folks fret that accelerators have jumped the shark. Our tagline for the Public Media Accelerator is "seeking mission-driven entrepreneurs changing media for good." We're in a time of remarkable technology innovation, and our goal is to channel the forces driving that growth towards public service media. The two forces, the tech sector and public media, need each other: The tech sector will gain from public media's high-quality content, commitment to community, and public service mission; and public media will gain from technology's network efficiencies, professional and social connections, and radical new distribution paths.