“Everything we do means we can’t do something else,” she said. If the distributor had kept TAL on its docket, it would only have had more “non-productive conversations” about digital collaborations, limiting its ability to pursue other opportunities, according to Yager. TAL‘s claim on its digital rights also kept PRI from involving the show in collaborations with stations, according to Yager. PRI cross-posts Science Friday stories on PRI.org, along with summaries of show segments and links to supplemental materials, and its agreement with the show’s producers allows for digital and broadcast co-productions. PRI is working with other shows in its portfolio to expand its digital offerings, including Science Friday, which PRI distributes but does not co-produce. The World is a PRI co-production, and PRI.org is home to The World‘s web content. PRI is embarking on The Ninth Month and similar global projects in collaboration with its daily newsmagazine The World and is providing stations with digital tools for integrating the project on their own sites while linking to The World‘s content on PRI.org. The distributor is also focusing on engagement by curating online conversations on its site and on social media platforms and developing interactive projects with stations, such as The Ninth Month, a multimedia project on childbirth that includes an initiative to collect lullabies from around the globe. “PRI understandably sees the most opportunity with shows where they can have a hand in digital distribution.” “We have always owned our digital rights and were not putting those on the table in the contract discussion,” Seth Lind, TAL‘s operations director, told Current in an email. The show hosts its archives on its own site and does not cross-post episodes to PRI.org, which the network relaunched in September with a renewed focus on global news and content exclusive to digital. That has prevented PRI from creating its own supplemental materials for TAL stories, such as videos and infographics for PRI.org and station websites. TAL has exclusive ownership of digital rights to its content.

But while TAL has grown its own devoted digital following through its podcast, PRI has adopted a collaborative approach to launching digital initiatives with producers and stations, said Julia Yager, PRI’s head of sales, marketing and distribution. When PRI first picked up Ira Glass’s WBEZ program for national carriage in 1997, the distributor focused almost exclusively on radio.

The disagreement centered primarily on the use of TAL‘s online content.

PRI’s announcement March 20 that it will part ways with This American Life underscored a growing difference in digital strategy between the popular show and its longtime distributor. This American Life, hosted and created by Ira Glass, retains all digital rights to its content, which limited PRI’s use of the show in new strategies for online.

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