PRX says it is entering one of the most turbulent periods in public media history from a position of financial and technological strength, as the nonprofit audio company leans into podcasting, creator tools and digital infrastructure to help stations survive mounting economic pressure.<\/p>\n
In its 2025 annual report, PRX says it expanded support for stations and creators even as federal funding cuts and commercial headwinds intensified across public media. The organization highlighted its growing podcast platform, investments in new programming and an expanding push into video and live events as part of a broader effort to modernize public media\u2019s business model.<\/p>\n
\u201cPRX is not just weathering this storm \u2014 we\u2019re charting the course forward,\u201d CEO Kerri Hoffman writes in her annual letter<\/a>. \u201cWe\u2019re accelerating the transition towards a digital-first infrastructure for a vibrant public media.\u201d<\/p>\n The annual report shows the scale of that effort, although PRX ended the year with a deficit of around $1.01 million. PRX reported $27.04 million in total revenue, including $8.39 million from underwriting, $3.35 million from grants, and $2.42 million from donations.<\/p>\n Hoffman frames the current moment as an existential challenge for public media, writing that PRX faced \u201cthe most significant challenge to the U.S. public media system in decades.\u201d But rather than pull back, she said the organization \u201cinvested in new shows when others hesitated\u201d and continued providing free services to under-resourced stations.<\/p>\n PRX works with 900 stations across the U.S., distributing more than 20 public radio shows like \u201cThe Moth\u201d and \u201cLatino USA.\u201d They reach 5.3 million U.S. listeners each week \u2014 growth that PRX acknowledges bucks the trend of declining public radio audiences.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are starting to define the next generation of audio on public radio,\u201d says Sean Nesbitt, Senior Director of Industry Partnerships at PRX. \u201cWe are shaping the sound and the style and the talent that will become the future pillars of public radio. We have this new crop of talent that we\u2019re growing, and that has been one of our big achievements this year.\u201d<\/p>\n PRX says that effort means embracing content that will appeal to younger Millennial and Gen Z audiences, or different cultural groups that haven\u2019t listened to public radio.<\/p>\n VP of Content Stephanie Kuo says the question they are asking is whether they can make the public media sensibility a \u201clittle edgier\u201d and a \u201clittle bit more contemporary\u201d to be in tune with the cultural zeitgeist.<\/p>\n \u201cThe future of public media doesn\u2019t have to sound exactly the same,\u201d Kuo says. \u201cIt needs to uphold the same values, but it doesn\u2019t have to sound the same.\u201d<\/p>\n Podcasting is also playing a bigger role. PRX\u2019s network Radiotopia had 33 indie shows on its roster last year. Combined, there were 47.3 million downloads to podcasts including \u201cEar Hustle<\/a>\u201d and \u201cSong Exploder<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n PRX also brought 30 public media stations onto the Dovetail podcast publishing platform \u201cat no cost\u201d during 2025 with the support of the now-closed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. By being a nonprofit, CTO Andrew Kuklewicz says they\u2019re able to \u201cdraw a different line\u201d based on PRX\u2019s values to maintain a more mission-driven and privacy-focused alternative to commercial tech platforms.<\/p>\n Looking Ahead<\/p>\n The impact of a loss of federal dollars continues to ripple through public media. But COO Jason Saldanha says he remains optimistic PRX will be able to adopt based on its focus on innovation.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think any other organization is going to take the chances, nor have the credibility in the market, to innovate on the scale that we do,\u201d Saldanha says. \u201cWe have to be strong and continue to be agile in trying to bring new stuff to the fore and try to be the best partners in doing so.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PRX says it is entering one of the most turbulent periods in public media history from a position…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,4975,157,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-423927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-free","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}