FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Dec. 9, 2009 |
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Radio Bilingüe Selects Paragon Media Strategies to
Conduct Groundbreaking Research for LA Public Media
Los Angeles, California—Radio Bilingüe (RB), the California-based national Latino public media
network, today announced that it has selected Paragon Media Strategies to conduct the research
for its new L.A. Public Media project. The multimedia English-language service will be aimed
toward a young, diverse and underserved audience in Los Angeles. Paragon will spearhead an
intensive four-phase research effort to identify the audience and test multimedia content. The
project is funded by a major grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
“We are pleased that we will be working with Mike Henry and Paragon to conduct innovative and
historic research on this large, growing, ethnically diverse and underserved audience in the L.A.
metro market,” said Hugo Morales, founder and executive director of Radio Bilingüe. “For the first
time, a national media research firm will be studying this young audience to find out what it wants
from a public media service. Our goal is to work with Paragon to map out the needs and
aspirations of this audience and design and test content that resonates with them.”
Mike Henry, Paragon’s CEO, said, “It’s an honor to be on the team to build and launch one of the
first multi-ethnic public media services in America. Being a multiplatform service in Los Angeles
makes it even more special. The professionals from Radio Bilingüe and LA Public Media are great
to work with, and I would also like to acknowledge our project partners, Media Mechanics and
Eatideas Consulting. I have no doubt that we’re creating a new public media model for younger
and more diverse audiences, which is incredibly important and exciting.”
During the coming weeks, the project leadership expects to begin hiring the remainder of the
senior content production team to develop pilot programming for testing. In addition, the project
will begin its marketing, branding, community engagement and fundraising efforts in preparation
for an online launch of the service in 2010.
About Radio Bilingüe
Radio Bilingüe programming is broadcast on 100 radio stations across the U.S., Puerto Rico and
16 radio stations in Mexico via its 24-hour transnational satellite service. Its wide range of music,
information and cultural programming in Spanish, English and other languages includes Linea
Abierta (Open Line), the first and only national Spanish-language live weekday talk show in the
public radio system offering roundtable discussions with leading political figures and listener phone
calls.
About Paragon
Paragon Media Strategies has a long history expanding the reach of public media. Clients have
included KPCC/Los Angeles, KPLU/Seattle, “The Current” in Minneapolis, “Radio Milwaukee”, the
new KXT/Dallas, American Public Media, National Public Radio, Classical Public Radio Network
and Minnesota Public Radio. Paragon is a premier programming research and consulting firm in
radio, TV, print and multiplatform media with significant experience for ethnic and progressive
media. Paragon’s innovative research and strategy have helped create new public radio and
commercial radio formats over the years, and groundbreaking changes to NPR’s news magazines with the creation of the “NPR News” brand. Paragon Media Strategies is headquartered in
Denver, Colorado. Paragon partners for the LA Public Media launch include Media Mechanics and Eatideas Consulting.
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