*By Bridgette Webb*
Public Radio Exchange (PRX) and Public Radio International (PRI) are joining forces in a bid to capitalize on the booming popularity of podcasts.
The radio producers are two of the four national distributors of programming for public radio stations in the United States, and the first among their peers to merge.
PRX's chief executive, Kerri Hoffman, said there's a real synergy between the two companies.
"Think of PRX and PRI as siblings born a generation apart," Hoffman said Friday in an interview on Cheddar. "There are some things, at our core, at both organizations that we can strengthen. And the things that are differentiators are really where the opportunity is."
The merger may have arrived just in time, with listeners slowly tuning out traditional broadcasts in favor of on-demand and streaming options.
The number of people listening to podcasts has more than doubled over the past five years and is expected to hit roughly 73 million listeners this year, according to [Edison Research](http://www.edisonresearch.com/podcast-consumer-2018/).
That growth has been buoyed by podcasts' ability to showcase diverse and compelling content ー with voices that were traditionally neglected by mainstream radio.
Hoffman said it's a trend she hopes will continue.
"The barriers to entry is so much lower, but that is just part of they story," she said. "The thing that we learned over many years is that we need a whole suite of services that help people get successful."
According to PRX, the combined organization will reach more than 28.5 million listeners a month through 885 stations’ broadcast signals and websites. The companies are projecting $38 million in revenue in the first year after the merger.
Hoffman sees some roadblocks ahead, specifically, the proposal by [Republican lawmakers](http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-pbs-cpb-npr-trump-budget-cuts-20170316-story.html ) to reduce funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Still, she thinks public media is here to say ー largely because of listener and viewer support.
" It's always a threat, but we really believe the American public has demonstrated over and over again that there is a strong and important place for non-commercial media in a Democratic society."
For more on this story, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/public-radio-platforms-merge-to-create-podcast-powerhouse).
IBM is unleashing its 2019 Call for Code to university students in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. The two forces combined hope to enlist the help even more students worldwide to solve problems relating to natural disasters, like Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico."If you think about all the innovative technology that we have at IBM, we really are unleashing it to solve some of the major societal issues that we have, focused specifically here on natural disasters in 2018 and 2019," IBM Chief Digital Officer Bob Lord told Cheddar. "We are not going to stop natural disasters, but we can sure get prepared for them and respond to them more effectively than ever before, and I believe, through technology."
Apple is planning a subscription service that would function like Netflix for games, according to people familiar with the matter. The iPhone maker has also discussed partnering with developers as a publisher, which could signal ambitions to assume distribution and marketing costs for games.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.
In the digital age, advertisers have more options to reach consumers online than ever before ー through social networks, native content, banner ads ー but their understanding of the effectiveness of digital ad campaigns has remained vague. Now, flush with $20 million in venture capital, Knotch is building a platform that it says will allow advertisers to see what works and where ー in real time.
Apple is planning a subscription service that would function like Netflix for games, according to people familiar with the matter. The iPhone maker has also discussed partnering with developers as a publisher, which could signal ambitions to assume distribution and marketing costs for games.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Jan. 28, 2019.
The founder and CEO of Vangst, a cannabis recruiting platform, wants to help budding cannabis companies staff up ーand she has Snoop Dogg's support to make that happen. Founder and CEO, Karson Humiston, told Cheddar she was inspired to create the company back in college after a trip to Colorado.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Following a 2018 Supreme Court ruling year that cleared the way for sports gambling, fans in seven states can bet on the upcoming Super Bowl for the first time ー and leaders in the budding industry are anticipating the Big Game will deliver their biggest day yet. “We expect the Super Bowl to be our single biggest day in the company’s history,” Mike Raffensperger, the chief marketing officer for betting platform FanDuel, told Cheddar.
Microsoft inked three major partnerships in just one month ー and each union has a common theme, according to the company's executive vice president of worldwide commercial business."I think to sum it up, we're about empowerment," Judson Althoff told Cheddar. "We're about empowering our customers to achieve their potential."
