PRI Statement about Distribution of This American Life – March 20, 2014

In 1997, PRI began distributing This American Life to public radio stations in the U.S., and since then we have grown carriage to 587 stations and supported growth of its audience to 2.2MM weekly listeners. We are extremely proud of our productive relationship and role in their success. During our most recent negotiation, it became clear that our organizations’ expectations regarding our futures were different, and therefore, we mutually agreed that beginning July 1, 2014, PRI will no longer distribute the program.

PRI remains your source for content from new voices, offering the diverse perspectives that build audience on stations big and small, in both urban and rural markets. Throughout our history, we have identified content needs and invested to develop programming to meet those needs, including Marketplace, Classical 24, PRI’s The World® and The Takeaway – all now broadly carried in public radio. New programs to our portfolio, like Q: The Music and Innovation Hub, ongoing innovations like the Ninth Month Series from PRI’s The World®, and new limited series like Radio Ambulante and The Really Big Questions give you new ways of making global – local connections while building audience and revenue. In the months ahead, we’ll be announcing even more new programs and content initiatives, so stay tuned!

This American Life will continue production and will soon announce plans for distribution.