The Radio Information Service or RIS was a
reading service for the
blind in
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
that was carried via
subcarrier
A subcarrier is a sideband of a radio frequency carrier wave, which is modulated to send additional information. Examples include the provision of colour in a black and white television system or the provision of stereo in a monophonic radio broa ...
on
WDUQ in Pittsburgh.
Prior to closing in 2009, the RIS weekly audience was 1,200 listeners with two-thirds of the audience over 60 years of age. Most listeners lived in
Allegheny,
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
and
Westmoreland Counties but RIS also served nine other counties in the region, including
Armstrong Armstrong may refer to:
Places
* Armstrong Creek (disambiguation), various places
Antarctica
* Armstrong Reef, Biscoe Islands
Argentina
* Armstrong, Santa Fe
Australia
* Armstrong, Victoria
Canada
* Armstrong, British Columbia
* Armstrong ...
,
Beaver
Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...
,
Butler
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantry. Some a ...
,
Cambria
Cambria is a name for Wales, being the Latinised form of the Welsh name for the country, . The term was not in use during the Roman period (when Wales had not come into existence as a distinct entity). It emerged later, in the medieval period, a ...
,
Fayette,
Greene,
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
,
Lawrence
Lawrence may refer to:
Education Colleges and universities
* Lawrence Technological University, a university in Southfield, Michigan, United States
* Lawrence University, a liberal arts university in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States
Preparator ...
and
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
. RIS also serves parts of
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and
West Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian, Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States.The Census Bureau and the Association of American Geographers classify West Virginia as part of the Southern United States while the Bur ...
.
Listeners accessed RIS through a special FM radio receiver, over the Internet, on
Comcast Cable systems or through the RIS Telephone Dial-In Service.
Programming
RIS based its programming on its motto "Independence Through Information". Given that many visual impairments tend to be age-related, RIS's services were specially tailored to their needs. One of the most popular programs was the daily newspapers where a pair of
narrators read local and regional
newspaper
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports a ...
s, including the ''
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'', also known simply as the PG, is the largest newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the ''Pittsburgh Gazette'', established in 1786 as the first newspaper published west of the All ...
'' and the ''
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
The ''Pittsburgh Tribune-Review'', also known as "the Trib," is the second largest daily newspaper serving metropolitan Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Although it transitioned to an all-digital format on December 1, 2016, it rem ...
''. Other programming included popular magazines, ads from grocery, drug and department stores, TV listings and other special interest publications. Additionally, RIS provided translations of printed material to
Braille
Braille (Pronounced: ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired, including people who are Blindness, blind, Deafblindness, deafblind or who have low vision. It can be read either on Paper embossing, embossed paper ...
or audio recording.
History
At its founding in 1976 RIS was broadcast from the campus of
Duquesne University to whom it paid rent for space and a small fee for transmitter use on WDUQ-FM. Around 1991, the University told the small non-profit that it no longer had room for them on its campus and gave it 30 days to vacate. Protesting loudly, the service was able to convince the University that 30 days was not ample time to relocate. Following a year of emergency fund raising, design, and build-out, the station moved to the Birmingham Towers on the
Southside neighborhood of Pittsburgh.
In 2004, facing a lack of funding and a possible shutdown, the board of RIS began exploring possibilities of partnering with another organization. On November 1, 2005, RIS entered into a Management Agreement with
WDUQ. This agreement allowed the reading service to remain a separate
501(c)(3)
A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...
nonprofit organization with a governing board responsible for all fundraising and community outreach while WDUQ was responsible for the day-to-day RIS business operations, including programming, services, personnel and volunteer management.
However, by 2009, the service was no longer able to sustain operations, and the service went inactive on August 14, 2009.
Other ''Radio Information Service'' - for the blind
Radio Reading Services-
American Foundation for the Blind
Chicagoland Radio Information ServiceLive
NPR Illinois Radio Information Service
Detroit Radio Information Service
Radio Information Service by Wabash Valley CollegeLive
Sun Sounds of Arizona - Listen Live
See also
* Radio reading service
References
{{Reflist
External links
* https://web.archive.org/web/20120204153440/http://www.readingservice.org/
*
Radio reading services of the United States