'This American Life' Self-Distributes Through PRX

One of the large, "What now?" questions of 2014 just got answered: Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass will handle distribution of This American Life, using PRX to deliver it to stations.

The program had been distributed by PRI since 1997.

This from a press release today:

“We’re excited and proud to be partners now with PRX,” said Glass. “They’ve been a huge innovative force in public radio, inventing technologies and projects to get people on the air who’d have a much harder time without them. They’re mission-driven, they’re super-capable and apparently they’re pretty good with computers.”

“We are huge fans of This American Life and are thrilled to support their move to self- distribution on our platform,” said Jake Shapiro, CEO of PRX. “We’ve had the privilege of working closely with Ira and team to develop This American Life’s successful mobile apps, and are honored to expand our partnership to the flagship broadcast.”

This American Life will sell its own underwriting and market the show to stations. Those chores will be handled by Marge Ostroushko, who he release says "... did the job back before This American Life began distribution with PRI."