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PRESS RELEASE
SEATTLE, WA– January 26, 2006 – 88.5 KPLU-FM Public Radio renews their contract with Public Radio Partners (PRP) to serve as the station’s exclusive representative for all local corporate underwriting through May 2011. Revenues generated from corporate underwriting help provide the informative and cultural programs found on public radio, and help the station evolve to serve the community.
Representation by Public Radio Partners since February 2002 has boosted underwriting revenue by an average of 25% annually over prior year for the past 4 years.
PRP has also introduced innovative programs to air and online, such as Jazz Kitchen, Northwest Neighborhoods, and Northwest Neighborhood Bookstores. Jazz Kitchen, a presentation by host Dick Stein, blending ingredients, recipes and zany poems with a dash of jazz, is now also a podcast segment hosted by NPR at www.npr.org. Northwest Neighborhoods and Northwest Neighborhood Bookstores showcase local communities and local independent bookstores respectively, on-air with story expansion online at www.kplu.org. Both programs have availed alternative sponsorship opportunities for local businesses and non-profits.
In the relationship’s near term, Public Radio Partners will balance their focus on sustaining the growth of traditional on-air underwriting while developing best practices for sales models pertaining to more web initiatives and podcasting.
Public Radio Partners’ success stems from its ability to communicate public radio’s marketing value to the business community and align with underwriters who value public radio’s non-commercial nature and quality programming.
88.5 KPLU, a community service of Pacific Lutheran University, is listener-supported and provides National Public Radio news, and jazz and blues to western Washington and British Columbia. 89.3 KVIX serves Port Angeles, Victoria, B.C. and surrounding areas on Vancouver Island. 90.1 KPLI serves Olympia. Ranked as one of the most popular public radio stations in the nation, 88.5 KPLU is also available in High-Definition Radio, and streams its jazz 24 hours a day at www.kplu.org.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, Public Radio Partners is a privately owned business providing outsourced underwriting sales departments to public broadcasting stations. Operations began in 1999 when KJZZ & KBAQ-FM in Phoenix outsourced their underwriting sales to PRP, a partnership that soared revenues by 50% in the first two years. In calendar year 2005 PRP generated $8.5 million for their client stations: KJZZ and KBAQ in Phoenix, KNPR and KCNV in Las Vegas, KPLU in Seattle, WPLN in Nashville, and KUT in Austin, Capital Public Radio in Sacramento and a consultant relationship with WYCC-TV in Chicago. |
