Formerly, much of American Public Media's programming content was distributed by Public Radio International, which itself was named American Public Radio, or APR, until July 1, 1994. APR was formed by four stations—the Minnesota Public Radio network, WGBH in Boston, WNYC in New York, and KUSC in Los Angeles—to distribute A Prairie Home Companion. PRI owns and produces numerous programs today, but still also distributes diverse programming from many sources. In contrast, APM, which was founded in 2004, predominantly distributes content that it owns and produces itself; exceptions include The Story with Dick Gordon (which ended production in October 2013), the distribution to US stations of the BBC World Service, and the BBC Proms broadcasts from Royal Albert Hall in London.[citation needed]
The split happened as MPR and PRI began seeing each other more as potential competitors after MPR lost the partnership to WGBH to produce The World, and MPR purchased PRI-distributed Marketplace for its own distribution channels.[4]
APM Research Lab is the research and data journalism unit of American Public Media.[11] The Lab was established in 2017 under the leadership of American Public Media Group's CEO Jon McTaggart and EVP Dave Kansas with the hiring of its inaugural Managing Partner, Craig Helmstetter.[12] The Lab was created to further strengthen APM's commitment to factual information as indicated by the tagline "bringing facts into focus."[13] The unit has conducted several research projects in collaboration with newsrooms within the American Public Media Group and beyond, including partnerships with Marketplace, Minnesota Public Radio News, and PBS/Frontline and the Texas Newsroom.[14][15][16]
Several specials are also distributed by APM on a less frequent basis, including a number of Christmas programs, Giving Thanks at Thanksgiving, and the BBC Proms.
