Radio Arte, 90.5 WRTE-FM and Vocalo.org, 89.5 WBEW-FM recently announced a year-long collaboration to share content and resources in order to promote innovation in public media in the Chicago and Northwest Indiana region.

The two public radio stations will work together in several ways. Vocalo.org will rebroadcast Radio Arte’s entire bilingual (Spanish) radio programming on Vocalo.org’s HD-2 channel full-time, seven days a week. The HD signal increases Radio Arte’s broadcast footprint to include much more of Chicago and Northwest Indiana and also allows them to transmit text data along with the radio signal to HD radios.

“The HD signal addition to our broadcast will allow us to bring programming made by Latino youth to a broader listenership,” said Silvia Rivera, station manager of the bilingual, youth-driven public radio station, Radio Arte.

“This collaboration is another way that we fulfill our mission of helping to bring multiple and diverse voices to the public airwaves,” said Wendy Turner, general manager of Vocalo.org, a public radio station whose broadcast is based around user-submitted content culled from their social networking website.

“Both Vocalo.org and Radio Arte are committed to building networks of media creators in the general public, so finding ways of working together is a natural fit,” added Wendy.

Besides sharing resources, the partnership includes content sharing as well. On Fridays from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m., Radio Arte hosts will join Vocalo.org host Luis Perez on the Vocalo.org broadcast. During this broadcast, the hosts will create a new sound that will feature both Vocalo.org and Radio Arte interviews, discussions and themes. The hosts have collaborated since October, and are still working to find a sound that blends the aesthetic of the two stations. Finally, both Radio Arte and Vocalo.org will promote their collaborative efforts to their listeners on their respective stations, websites, social networks and newsletters.

“The collaborative broadcast on Fridays will expose Radio Arte listeners to the powerful and easy online multimedia creation tools on Vocalo.org, and likewise will expose Vocalo.org listeners to the content that Latino youth are creating. It’s a win-win for both listener communities,” noted Silvia.

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