Public Radio Exchange is an online marketplace for distribution, review, and licensing of public radio programming. PRX is also a growing social network and community of listeners, producers, and stations collaborating to reshape public radio.
Producers of public radio content upload their work to PRX, and stations and other groups can purchase (license) and download this content directly from the site. The result is an extensive, technology-driven public radio catalog — no CD-mailing to stations required. And, everyone who loves public radio can sign up, listen, and become part of the PRX community.
PRX welcomes listeners, stations, producers and networks: just sign up for an account. Listeners can stream any piece for free. Producers can post pieces for stations and stations and networks can post their work and license pieces for broadcast.
In addition, PRX welcomes any public, noncommercial community, college, low power FM station — and international broadcasters, too. We consider other acquirers, such as internet stations, commercial radio, podcasters, and libraries on a case-by-case basis.
Anyone who would like to listen to pieces on PRX needs to sign up for a free account. Individual producers and producer groups who would like to post their work on PRX need accounts, too. And, stations that would like to license content from PRX need accounts, and each person at the station who wants access to the station account needs his/her individual account.
Click "Sign Up" at the top of the screen, fill out the fields, pick a username and a password you'll remember (if you forget, we can remind you) and be sure to enter a valid email address.
Then we send you a confirmation email — it's how we keep spammers off PRX. Plus, we need to have an email address in order to communicate with you (if you post pieces on PRX, we need a secure way to let you know when it gets licensed, etc.). Follow the link in the email, sign in, and start listening.
Go here to reset your password or click "Forgot Your Password?" on our home page. We'll send you a new one to the email address you used to set up the account.
With a free account you get two hours of audio space for any pieces you want to upload. But, if your pieces are licensed by stations or outside purchasers, you don't make any royalties.
A paid membership gets you unlimited audio space on PRX, plus the glory of earning royalties if your pieces are licensed.
Individual producer, producer group, and station.
Producers and producer groups upload and sell their work on PRX. Learn more.
Stations can both buy and sell pieces on PRX. Learn more.
PRX charges individual producers $50/year and producer groups are charged yearly based on their budget size:
| Group Budget Size | Membership Cost |
| Below $49,999 | $50 |
| $50,000 - $149,999 | $120 |
| $150,000 - $299,999 | $150 |
| $300,000 - $449,999 | $200 |
| $450,000 - $1 Mil | $500 |
| $1 Mil + | $1,000 |
Station memberships are based on total station revenue and how many hours of content a station would like to download in a year. Learn more.
If you're a producer or part of a producer group: Your membership will revert to a free account, which means your audio storage is limited to two hours and you will not earn royalties for any licensed pieces. You can still log in, search, listen to and comment on any pieces on the site.
If you're with a station: You will not be able to buy anything on PRX or earn any royalties if your pieces are bought by other stations.
Yes! We encourage any public radio station to try us out. Formerly called a "starter" membership, with a free trial membership a station can download six hours of content from PRX and has two hours of upload space for their own content.
We won't delete your pieces from our site, but you won't receive royalties for any that are purchased by stations or outside purchasers.
We pinch ourselves, too. Yes! All PRX pieces are available as free streaming audio. Just sign up to get started.
To make our audio player work, you will need to have Flash installed (most new-ish computers and laptops have that already). If you try to play the audio and you are prompted to install Flash, just, uh...do it.
Type any keyword into the search box at the top of the screen. You can get more specific results by clicking "advanced" next to the search box. Then you can search by keyword, format, topic, tone, license, timeliness, and more.
Sorry, at the moment because of copyright and payment reasons only stations and certain other types of paid accounts can download MP3 files of pieces. However, many of our members podcast and we have our own podcast.
This is a bug that usually appears if you are using the Explorer browser (and will go away on its own eventually), but has also been known to pop up on other browsers. We recommend using Firefox, which is available for free.
Also, try checking to make sure you have installed the latest updates for your browser. If none of that works, try listening from a different computer.
Contact us. We know the site inside and out and can help you find the right piece.
Create a playlist! You can put pieces in an order that you like and let them play while you do other things.
Playlists are also a great a way for you to share a collection of PRX stuff that you want to recommend. Say you create a playlist called "Great Pieces for My Workday." Then, when you go to a piece you will see the option to add that piece to your playlist. You can create as many playlists as you like.
If you work at a station or you want to assemble a list of pieces just to play all at once, this is a simple method of curating selections and categorizing them.
Don't worry, we saved them for you as a playlist. You can find them under My PRX > Manage your Playlists.
Everyone on PRX, even unpaid account holders, has two free hours of audio space. Just check out our instructions and read our info about paid producer memberships first.
You can post up to two hours of pieces on PRX for free, but you will not earn any royalties if those pieces are licensed. To earn royalties if your pieces are licensed and to get unlimited audio storage space, you'll need to pay for a yearly membership.
Your audio must be an MP2 file to get onto PRX. MP2s are the high-quality industry standard for public radio. You must use the free PRX Encoder application to convert your audio. If you use another method to encode your audio, the upload process might not work. Learn more.
We highly, highly recommend that you start out by using an uncompressed format like AIFF or WAV, not a compressed format like MP3. (For an explanation on the difference, see compressed versus uncompressed.) Regardless, the take-home point is that when a piece of audio is compressed, it loses a lot of sound quality. It doesn't matter if it's converted back into a WAV or AIFF; it will still sound just as bad.
Nope. You must attach it to a piece.
Yes, if you have a paid membership. If you have an unpaid account, you have two hours of audio space.
Nope! Just make sure you follow our Uploading Policy.
If you send your audio to our site using the Uploader application, the next step is to go to My PRX to create a piece and attach the audio to it. A piece is your audio as a page on our site, plus all the information associated with it: title, producers, tones, topics, price, licensing agreement, etc. Once you are finished filling out all the info, you can publish it for the world to see.
We are non-exclusive, so you are still welcome to distribute your work elsewhere. For all our terms and rules, please read our Uploading Policy and User Agreement.
Public and non-commercial radio stations in the United States remain the primary users of pieces on PRX, but we have started adding national shows, podcasts, Internet radio, and other organizations who come to PRX and want access to the wonderful work you have put on the site. We call these non-station distributors outside purchasers.
All stations on PRX can license your pieces, but we understand some producers may not want to sell to outside purchasers. You can adjust all your purchaser options when you create a piece.
Stations are looking for all sorts of content of all types and formats. But we do know what types and formats are most popular: one-hour programs and programs that fit easily into Morning Edition and other network clock slots. Music and music-related programs are the most licensed types of programs. Check out more info and tips.
If you have a program that is a half-hour, one hour or longer, the short answer is yes. This makes it easier for stations to input your show into station automation systems. BUT, we also urge you, if you have time, to post a non-segmented version that plays straight through for those stations that don't have automation system. Take a look at the network clocks for some ideas on how to segment longer programs.
The price of a piece is determined by its length; longer pieces carry higher PRX point prices than short ones. But all pieces are based on a default price of $.50/minute. The price is what a station pays in points.
You have three options when choosing the price of your piece:
Make your piece "free" by setting the price to zero points. Some producers are funded by grants, for example, that do not allow any kind of income to be made from distributing the piece. If you'd simply rather not receive payment, however, you can always set your piece to the standard rate and donate those points back to PRX.
PRX distributes pieces public on public (non-commercial) radio stations, which have blanket music agreements. They just need to report the music they play, so you have be certain to fill out all the musical works information when you create your pieces on PRX.
NOTE: You may not upload self-contained, complete musical works or excerpts, except if the music is contained in a longer piece. For legal reasons, pieces may contain music as background, transition, or featured (as in an interview with a musician about a song), but you cannot post a stand-alone, complete or excerpted musical work to PRX. For example, you cannot upload The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" to PRX, but you can post a program about the Stones that contains all or part of "Satisfaction."
All new pieces appear on our home page after they are published. Check out more tips for bringing attention to your pieces.
All newly posted pieces end up automatically on the home page in the list of New Pieces. This list changes all day every day as new pieces are added to PRX.
Then there is the manual way you end up on the home page: PRX site editors make an editorial or programmatic decision about what might capture the attention of stations: we see your piece appear and listen to it and say "Wow, that should be on the home page! I bet a station would find that interesting."
There are two options: unpublishing the piece so that all the information and audio stays on PRX, or deleting the piece entirely.
To unpublish a piece:
To delete a piece:
NOTE: Deleting a piece will not send your audio back to your dropbox. Deleting a piece removes the audio and the piece information from PRX.
Stations need either a trial or paid station membership. We also consider other purchasers such as podcasts and internet radio on a case-by-case basis.
We have a growing list of outside purchasers including podcasts, national shows, internet radio, and more that we consider on a case-by-case basis. Learn more.
Stations and outside purchasers, in addition to being able to stream audio on any piece, have access to downloadable, audition-only MP3 files. This gives flexibility to station programmers who need downloadable files in order to plan programming away from their computers. Stations are NOT ALLOWED to play MP3 audition files on the air. Doing so would violate the PRX User Agreement and the piece licensing agreement. It would also rob the producer of royalties and would put low-quality audio on your airwaves. Just don't do it.
No. Stations must broadcast the high quality MP2 files available with each piece. The MP3 file and the streaming audio file are for audition purposes only. As part of the User Agreement, you must follow all license terms set up by the producer and only broadcast the MP2.
No. When a station buys a piece, it has access to high quality, broadcast-ready MP2 audio file for a year. The station can download it at any point within that year from the piece page and can re-download it if necessary.
You can contact any member on PRX by going to his or her profile and clicking "Message me."
Go to My PRX > Purchased Pieces.
Yes, we encourage you to plan ahead. It's always best to buy pieces early if possible, especially if it is your first time downloading pieces and you think you may need help (our help desk-ers do sleep). You should also use up your station points before they expire (they're good for a year).
That's when we pay you for the pieces you've sold to stations and outside purchasers on PRX.
It depends which station licensed your piece. PRX guarantees a royalty rate of at least $.10 per point.
If you or your station sells a program through PRX to a station with a substantial budget, PRX will pay you at a higher royalty rate. Sell to a more modest station and your royalty rate will be smaller.
No. We take a percentage of station membership fees and calculate the rest into the royalty rate we pay to producers and stations whose work is purchased on PRX.
No. Only paid members will be credited for pieces they sell on PRX.
No. Only current paid members can receive royalties.
PRX pays royalties after the end of each calendar quarter — March 31, June 30, Sept. 30 and Dec. 31.