A Case Study

Close-up of a microphone in a recording studio with a blurred sound engineer in the background.

The Assignment:

Help social impact agency Matter Unlimited identify opportunities and challenges while placing bets on high potential strategic initiatives that build on PRX’s innovative heritage and strong technology and content foundation.

What we did:

The Difference Engine joined forces with Matter’s team of creatives and account leaders in a 6 week assignment to help them understand the business of public media, and the cultural context around a rapidly changing content ecosystem, from podcasts to streaming services, and beyond.

  • We facilitated stakeholder interviews with PRX leadership, advisors, board members and distribution and content partners across the public media landscape
  • We provided a complete competitive landscape audit, including core consumer and producer trends that were driving rapid change in behavior and content.
  • We partnered with the agency creative team and account leadership to develop a new mission and vision for PRX, as well as three core strategic directions for them to explore and adopt.

The results:

PRX committed to developing tools, platforms, and resources to support independent audio creators, expanding their reach to 60 million downloads a month across PRX distributed shows, developing tools to help creators monetize their own content while respecting listener privacy, and providing production and training support to new creators. Oh, and they formed a successful new partnership to distribute This American Life, as well as several shows from The New Yorker.