Case Study: The Fresh Air Archive

National Radio Darling Aims to Grow Audience, Preserve Legacy

For more than 40 years, Fresh Air With Terry Gross has highlighted the thinkers, creators, performers, and journalists who have either shaped or documented the American experience. It is one of public radio’s most-popular programs and is carried by over 600 NPR stations across the United States. Each week, over 5 million people listen to the show, making it one of the most-listened to programs distributed by NPR. It now reaches listeners through a growing podcast audience averaging 3 million downloads per week.

While Fresh Air enjoys a large radio and podcast audience, WHYY wasn’t ready to rest on its laurels. We believed that there was room to reach new audiences, especially younger cohorts and those that aren’t traditional public radio listeners. 

After completing a years-long effort to digitize and catalog four decades of shows (over 10K episodes), WHYY sought to leverage this new asset as a way to deepen engagement with existing fans, attract new, younger listeners, and uncover a possible new revenue stream for WHYY.

The Challenge: How might Fresh Air develop new products and services based around the archive that will have attract new audiences, delight fans, and provide a sustainable source of revenue for WHYY?

I worked with WHYY to attract philanthropic funding that would help us both answer that challenge and build our first product. Using Design Thinking principles and methodologies, I led the discovery and ideation process to identify our target audiences and how we could serve them. In less than a year, we launched FreshAirArchive.org, a free-to-use website organizing and presenting the thousands of interviews into curated collections, topics, and a comprehensive A-Z guest list. We created a way for visitors to create their own playlists and share them with their friends. And we paid close attention to SEO (search engine optimization) so Google would rank us a valuable and trusted resource.

Having built a home for the Fresh Air archive, WHYY is now working with third-party partners to expand the visibility and impact of this unique collection.