NPR To Create "Major Digital Music Service"

NPR has announced the creatation of a "major digital music service to extend the significant role that public radio stations, networks and producers currently hold in music discovery and create a unified place to showcase all genres on present and future media platforms." The centerpiece of the service will be a supersite pooling the public radio system’s collective resources, enabling users to learn and explore, creating communities and offering exposure for emerging and non-mainstream artists. It will encompass all music forms of music, including classical, jazz, folk, opera, AAA, electronica and alternative.

"From the start, music in all forms has been a cornerstone of public radio. NPR, public radio producers and our station colleagues are recognized as important music presenters and curators for the public, wherever they are," said NPR EVP KEN STERN. "While this role began with traditional program broadcasts, we have pioneered innovations -- independently and collaboratively -- including a modular music production and acquisition program service, NPR Music online, live streaming concerts, podcasts and, most recently, digital radio multicast channels. The digital music discovery arena is a new and barely-explored one, and a logical place for NPR and the public radio system to take a leadership role."

The project is tentatively scheduled to roll out in the first half of 2007.

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