PROVIDENCE, RI - GLAD WORKS recently launched an iTunes application for WRNI, Rhode Island’s NPR News station. This custom application is the nation’s first-ever free iTunes app for streaming a public radio station. With this innovation, WRNI’s listeners can now access - at no charge - NPR news and programming as well as local Rhode Island content anywhere in the world.

GLAD WORKS, a local marketing, design and web development agency, enlisted the help of Stormy Productions, a developer of custom iPhone applications, to create this software for WRNI listeners to stream the station’s broadcast. Currently offered free on iTunes, the WRNI application works on the iPhone and iPod Touch with 2.0 software update (both first generation and second generation 3G), and streams over both AT&T’s Edge and 3G networks, as well as any wifi network.

According to WRNI’s General Manager Joe O’Connor, “I am absolutely thrilled to be the first NPR station in the country to provide this new technology for iPhone users around the world. Given that almost 1,000 people downloaded this application within 24 hours from as far away as Japan and Germany, it’s clear that there is a global and mobile demand for Rhode Island Public Radio.”

On September 18, the first day of the iTunes application’s launch, WRNI’s audience of streaming listeners increased to four times its average. Within the first five days, an average of 500 new listeners per day have downloaded the application.

Visit the iTunes store to download the application now.