Independent Perspective #1610

Guest:  Michael Benzin

Topic:  Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service

Duration:  05:58

Published:  August 20, 2020

Host:   Welcome to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of Western New York Independent Living (WNYIL). Our guest today is Michael Benson Executive Director of the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service (NFRRS), and your host is yours truly, Ernie Churchwell. Welcome to the program, Mike.

Guest:  Thanks, Ernie.

Host:  You're our guest today because there's an exciting new development in your service that will allow it to be used by many more people. But first I bet there's a lot of folks listening that are not familiar with just what it is NFRRS does. Who does it serve, and in what way is it different from other broadcasters?

Guest:  Well essentially, we're a reading service. We take things that are in print, and we read them over the air for people who are blind or have low vision or have other physical disabilities, especially if they can't hold a book or turn a page, and have difficulty reading. So, for 30 some years we've been reading newspapers, magazines, books, all kinds of publications over a radio frequency to people who we’ve loaned special radios. It's been a great experience for everybody.

Host:  But up till now your listenership has been limited by the availability of those special radios because you can't just go down to the corner big box store and get a radio that will pick up Radio Reading, can you?

Guest:  No, the radio signal is not available over most radios, you have to have a special radio, it's actually a sub carrier signal of 94.5 FM which is WNED radio. But you need a special radio to kind of pull our signal out and tune in. And for a long time, these radios cost over $100 each. So, it's been a big limitation to the number of people that the Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service can serve, because we can't give everybody a radio, we just didn't have the money.

Host:  And what are some of the publications that you do include it in your service?

Guest:  We read the Buffalo News live six mornings a week, and then repeat that a couple times during the day. We read USA Today at noon, five days a week. We also read the Wall Street Journal, we read sections of the Sunday New York Times. And a lot of the weeklies, Buffalo Business First. The Bee newspapers for many of the communities. We read the Dunkirk Observer and the Niagara Gazette, all kinds of papers. And on top of that a lot of different magazines. Consumer Reports, Harper's, Parents, magazines like that.

Host:  And I believe an hour a day of a couple of kinds of books?

Guest:  It’s actually I think about three hours over the day, one hour each we devote to reading a chapter or two of a New York Times bestselling book.

Host:  But of course, the big excitement at the moment is that people that don't have the special radios, but do have computers and certain other types of connected devices can take advantage of it. How do they do that?

Guest:  Effective Friday, July 31 we're online. Basically, our live feed is now streaming live online through our website, through a host of apps that folks can tune in, so people do not need the radio anymore they just need a device with an internet connection. And that capability also gave us the ability to capture a lot of the programs for airing and turn them into podcasts. So if somebody wanted to listen to the Buffalo News this morning and missed it for one reason or another, they can tune in to the podcast anytime they want. We went from, you know, serving at most 500 listeners at a time to theoretically 1000s of listeners at a time.

Host:  What's a website that people can connect to to find the link to your service?

Guest:  The one website that has links to everything is our own website nfradioreading.org, and they can click on the programming tab. And on that tab, they'll see the podcasts we've already recorded for the last seven days. They'll see some other publications that have been recorded and are available, that haven't been broadcast. They'll also see links to apps that they can download on their smartphone, whether it's an iPhone or an Android. And the podcast services which are currently carrying our programs, such as Spotify, and iTunes, and Stretcher, and Stitcher and all those others. So that's a good one stop shop.

Host:  How can people call if they have questions?

Guest:  They can call us anytime at 716-821-5555 and we'd be happy to answer their questions.

Host:  Thanks for being with us, Mike. You've been listening to Independent Perspective, a Public Affairs presentation of WNYIL. Our guest today was Michael Benson Executive Director of the NFRRS, and your host was yours truly, Ernie Churchwell.