RADIO EYE INC.

Radio Eye's main goal is to increase our listeners' ability to lead full and productive lives, through access to date-sensitive printed information and other programming designed to offer greater independent living and improve health and well-being. We plan to reach out to more listeners in private homes, hospitals, and nursing/group homes; to alter local and regional programs on an annual basis based on our listeners’ wants and needs; and to seek other partnership opportunities. We evaluate the service with our annual listener survey, as well as through other contact with listeners.

As a result of Radio Eye, Kentucky’s blind and disabled population will have:
• Increased knowledge of current events on a local, state, and national level, including information about their elected representatives and political candidates up for election
• Decreased feeling of isolation, increased social interaction, and increased happiness
• Increased health literacy, and greater knowledge to self-advocate in health matters

Our target outcomes for 2020 are:
• 90% feel less isolated
• 65% know more about health topics affecting their community
• 50% able to talk to family and friends about topics on programming
• 20% talk to their doctor
• 15% attend an event they heard about on Radio Eye
• Keep our 24 hour broadcast on the air and podcasts available in the midst of physical office closure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To increase our listeners’ access to printed news and information, we produce 70 programs each week of information targeted to their needs and desires. Over 200 volunteers help with program production by reading printed material on-air and running our soundboard during live readings.

We broadcast our program 24/7 in a variety of media (including radio, telephone, smartphone app, Amazon Echo Alexa Skills, etc.) in order to reach the most listeners, regardless of technological ability. We keep abreast of trends in the radio reading industry and the blind/visually impaired population, through our memberships in the International Association of Audio Information Services and the Blind Services Coalition of Kentucky, and use those trends to inform our decision making.

In order to reach the highest number of blind and print-disabled listeners possible, we go to dozens of outreach events each year targeted to our demographic, and partner with many ophthalmologists and blindness professionals for referrals. The majority of our new listeners each year come from these referrals.

To ensure our listeners have increased knowledge of current events, we read dozens of programs each week, including 31 newspapers, 2 national news magazines, 3 consumer information programs, and 5 community news programs. To ensure greater health literacy, we read 9 health and disability programs. To ensure greater knowledge in general, we read 20 other programs with a variety of topics, including science and technology, fiction and non-fiction books, history, women’s issues, spirituality, and music. Through the familiar voices of our volunteer readers, we offer our listeners a unique form of companionship during long, lonely periods of their day and night, lessening feelings of isolation. Every year, we survey our listeners to make sure that our programming is effective, and update as needed based on the results.