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| Y Uses Technology to Expand Audience |
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| Tickets/Registration: 212.415.5500 |
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| Media Contact: Alix Friedman, 212.415.5453, email |
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| PARTNERSHIP WITH SIRIUS IS 92ND STREET Y'S LATEST MOVE TO EXPAND AUDIENCE FOR ITS UNIQUE CONTENT |
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Archives of renowned NYC cultural center contain 20,000 hours — and counting — of programs featuring world-famous personalities |
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| New York, NY, December, 11, 2006—The 92nd Street Y's recent agreement with SIRIUS Satellite Radio (NASDAQ: SIRI) to launch an exclusive weekly radio show on SIRIUS Stars channel 102 in early 2007 is the latest in a series of moves the famous New York City cultural center has made to broaden the audience for its lectures, concerts, and other unique content. In the last two years, the Y has also formed alliances with Audible.com®, the leading Internet provider of spoken-word entertainment and information programs, and video-on-demand cable network Shalom TV. In 2001, the Y launched its own satellite-broadcast program, LIVE from New York's 92nd Street Y™, which telecasts Y programs to cultural and community centers across North America; last year alone, the broadcasts were seen by 10,000 people. |
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"We want audiences well beyond the four walls of our building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan to be able to participate in what happens on our stage every night," says Karen Kolodny, Director, 92nd Street Y Milstein/Rosenthal Center for Media & Technology, who is responsible for identifying and developing broadcast opportunities. "These partnerships are just the start of what we plan to do with the more than 20,000 hours of content we've recorded since 1949."
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| DIGITIZING A VAST ARCHIVE |
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The 92nd Street Y's archival footage — over 15,500 hours of audio tape recorded since 1949 and over 4,600 hours of videotape recorded since 1996 — includes appearances by politicians, entertainers, scientists, scholars, business magnates, journalists, celebrities, and other newsmakers. Approximately 750 hours of material is added each year. The Y has begun digitizing these recordings, many of which were made using reel-to-reel, audiocassette, BETA SP and VHS formats, and expects to complete the process over the next two to three years at a cost of $2.3 million.
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The Y has been helped in this effort by a generous $200,000 "Save America's Treasures" grant administered by the National Endowment for the Arts. The grant covers roughly half of the over-3,000 hours produced by the organization's renowned Unterberg Poetry Center, one of the country's oldest literary forums, founded in 1939. The material comprises one of the richest collections of recordings of writers and includes many of the greatest authors of the 20th century — W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop, Jorge Luis Borges, Arthur Miller, Vladimir Nabokov, V.S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, Anaïs Nin, Allen Ginsberg, Mary McCarthy, Pablo Neruda, and Dylan Thomas, to name a few.
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The remainder of the 92nd Street Y's archives is replete with equally famous names: entertainers and celebrities like John Travolta, Paul McCartney, Katie Couric, Paul Newman, Woody Allen, Bette Midler, Zero Mostel, Richard Gere, Meryl Streep, Michael J. Fox, Martin Short, Elvis Costello, and Billy Joel; musicians, choreographers and visual artists like Chuck Close, Isaac Stern, Andres Segovia, Alvin Ailey, Roy Lichtenstein, Yo-Yo Ma, Leon Fleisher, Jerome Robbins, Robert Motherwell, Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Graham, Peter Serkin, and András Schiff; statesmen and politicians like Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, Queen Noor, Yitzhak Rabin, Lech Walesa, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Ann Richards, Al Gore, Mario Cuomo, and Madeleine Albright; hundreds of scientists, scholars, athletes, business titans, and other leaders in their respective fields; and the moral conscience of our age, Elie Wiesel, who has spoken at the Y every year since 1967.
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| A GROWING PORTFOLIO OF BROADCAST INITIATIVES |
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| To date, the 92nd Street Y has launched four broadcast initiatives: |
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♦ Satellite Radio Broadcasts — In early 2007, the 92nd Street Y and SIRIUS Satellite Radio® will launch From New York's 92nd Street Y, an exclusive weekly show on SIRIUS Stars channel 102 (www.sirius.com/stars). The show will feature programs from the 92nd Street Y's renowned series of interviews with leading thinkers, entertainers, and other newsmakers recorded live at the 92nd Street Y. Broadcasts will include both current and archival programs and, unlike most broadcast interviews, which are relatively brief, the interviews featured will be in-depth, often extending a full hour with a single guest.
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♦ Audio Downloads — As a result of a 2005 agreement with Audible.com (www.Audible.com), the leading Internet provider of spoken-word entertainment and information programs, anyone with an iPod, MP3 player or any of dozens of other digital-listening devices can download live recordings of 92nd Street Y lectures, interviews and entertainment events anywhere at any time.
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♦ Video on Demand — Since August of 2006, cable customers in Eastern Pennsylvania and Northern Delaware have been able to enjoy the 92nd Street Y's Jewish programming courtesy of Shalom TV (www.ShalomTV.com), the first national Jewish video-on-demand network. With its built-in audience of viewers interested in these events — talks by scholars, theologians, and political advisers, and performances by entertainers of all kinds — Shalom TV is an ideal partner for the Y.
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♦ Satellite Telecasts — Since 2001, the 92nd Street Y has been reaching audiences across North America through LIVE from New York's 92nd Street Y™ (www.92Y.org/live), the venue's proprietary program of satellite simulcasts. Each year, cultural and community centers throughout the U.S. and Canada receive live broadcasts of Y lectures, performances, and other programs. Using email, viewers in each location can participate in the Y's trademark Q&As, which allow audience members to ask questions of speakers and performers. Last year alone, 10,000 people outside New York participated in events taking place at the 92nd Street Y.
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y MILSTEIN/ROSENTHAL CENTER FOR MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY |
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Endowed in 1999 by visionary trustees Philip Milstein and the late John Rosenthal, and their wives Cheryl Milstein and the late Jackie Rosenthal, the 92nd Street Y Milstein/Rosenthal Center for Media & Technology develops technology-based programs that enable the Y to reach audiences well beyond its four walls. To date the Center has launched LIVE from New York's 92nd Street Y™, which telecasts Y programs via satellite to cultural and community centers across North America, and will soon launch From New York's 92nd Street Y, an exclusive radio show on SIRIUS Satellite Radio. The Center has also made Y programs available to customers of both Audible.com, the leading Internet provider of spoken-word entertainment and information, and Shalom TV, the first national Jewish video-on-demand network. Podcasts and an award-winning Web log (http://blog.92y.org/) offer two other means of learning about what the 92nd Street Y has to offer. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org/direct.
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| ABOUT THE 92nd STREET Y |
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Founded in 1874 by a group of visionary Jewish leaders, the 92nd Street Y has grown into a wide-ranging cultural, educational and community center serving people of all races, faiths and backgrounds. The 92nd Street Y's mission is to enrich the lives of the over 300,000 people who visit each year—both in person and through Live from NY's 92nd Street Y™, the Y's satellite broadcast program. The organization's East Side headquarters (1395 Lexington Avenue) and West Side outpost, the Steinhardt Building (35 West 67th Street), home of the Makor® and Daytime@™ programs, offer comprehensive performing arts, film and spoken word events; courses in the humanities, the arts, personal development and Jewish culture; activities and workshops for children, teenagers and parents; and health and fitness programs for people of every age. Committed to making its programs available to everyone, the 92nd Street Y awards over $1 million in scholarships annually and reaches out to 7,000 public school children through fully-subsidized arts education programs. For more information, please visit www.92Y.org. |
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© 2008 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association
All Rights Reserved. |
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