Guest:  Mike Benzin

Topic:  Niagara Frontier Radio Reading Service

Duration:  5:35

Published:  June 3, 2021

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

Guest:  Thank you, Ernie.

Host:  We're delighted to have you. I'm willing to bet that there's somebody listening today that is not familiar with the work of NFRRS hard is that may be to believe, but if you could tell me something about your history and whom it is you serve.

Guest:  Okay, well, very briefly, where you've been around for almost 35 years. We're one of I think Western New York's best kept secrets. We're a small agency, but our primary mission is to allow people who are blind or have low vision or have other print disabilities such as they can't hold a book or turn a page to read, they don't have access to print, they can't read print so we read it for them. So, for 30 some years we've been reading the Buffalo News every day, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, all the national magazines from Harper's and Smithsonian to Sports Illustrated, the Consumer Reports. A lot of the local weekly newspapers like the Bee Group newspapers in all the communities, as well as newspapers in Dunkirk and Niagara Falls.

Host:  And for many years, people needed a radio that picked up a special frequency to get your transmissions, but that has changed recently. What are the other venues that are available?

Guest:  Yes, for a long time people needed a special radio to pull down our frequency, you couldn’t just get it with any old radio, and that was kind of tedious and logistically challenging. So late last summer we took our feed and went online on the internet. So now anybody with an internet connection can listen to our live feed as if they had a radio. So, we've got people that listen on their computer, on their laptops, on their tablets, and their smartphones, all over the place.

Host:   Plus, a lot of your material can be found on various podcasting platforms, some of them fairly well known.

Guest:  And that's the greatest part about being on the internet is people if they miss the Buffalo News this Morning, for example, and they want to listen to it right now, they can open up Spotify or iTunes or Google, or whatever their favorite podcast player is and catch our most recent episode. So our whole goal is that people can listen to what they want, when they want, wherever they are.

Host:  That's a wonderful service that more people ought to know about, but there are some exciting changes happening at your facility there on Harlem Road, Cheektowaga. Could you tell us what you'll be able to achieve once those are done?

Guest:  Well we've been growing, and we've been growing in a lot of different ways. We grew with our coverage area by adding the internet so we can reach out to more listeners and more people who would like to take advantage of our services. We're growing in terms of the content of the publications we read, it's not just regional newspapers we're reading specialty newspapers like the Buffalo Challenger and the Buffalo Criterion and we're looking at some Hispanic community newspapers. But we're also growing physically. We've had our own building here on Harlem Road near Clinton for about 20 years, and much of the buildings has gone unused. We use about 2000 square feet and the main floor for our studios and our services, but we've got another 3000 square feet and the second floor that's not been used, and another 1000 square foot studio on the first floor that's not been used. So, we've decided we need to use that; one because it's great space, two because we can use the lease income to help fund our operations. So that's a big thing. So, we've already started, we gutted the whole second floor, pulled out all the partitions, all the plumbing and electrical. Had to do some hazardous material abatement because the building was just that old, just to kind of create an empty space, and we've identified a contractor who's going to come in and build out that space. We're going to create 12 offices, a kitchenette, a conference room, that will be perfect for and move-in and ready for our next tenant.

Host:  Mike, we're running short on time, I'm sure people will have questions, and might want to get a better idea of how to connect to radio reading. How can they reach you?

Guest:  Well they can call me anytime at 716-821-5555, they can also find us online at nfradioradioreading.org if they want to see our program schedule or make a donation and do any of those kinds of things, that's how to find us.

Host:  Thanks so much for being with us.

Guest:  Great, thank you, Ernie.

Host:  You've been listening to Independent Perspective, a public affairs presentation of WNYIL. Our guest today was Mike Benson, Executive Director of NFRRS and your host was yours truly, Ernie Churchwell.