If you have attended events such as literary readings, concerts, lectures or public interviews held by 92nd Street Y, you probably wanted to record the event and save it for later watching. Or maybe if you wanted to attend a 92Y event but don’t live in New York City, you wish that there was a live webcast. If you are a fan of culture, arts, or entertainment, you might want to find a place where you can hear creative minds speak about their work. Now all of your dreams can come true!

Launched in 2013, 92Y On Demand is an audio and video library that offers recordings of more than 10,000 92Y events dated back to 1949. It also offers online webcasts of the live events. And it’s completely free.

Content

92Y On Demand offers videos of 92Y Talks across many topics. Each talk is a conversation between a host from 92Y and a guest speaker. These speakers are artists, writers, actors and other creative people from all over the globe, so you can hear voices and opinions from different cultures and fields. Each conversation has a certain topic that the host will ask the speaker about, and they usually last for an hour.

Drawn from an archive spanning 56 years, the content is extremely diverse.  The website provides a myriad of ways to explore and find what you might like to watch. You can search for videos you like by browsing by a topic of interest, artists and speakers, the date of the event, or by looking for a themed series.

The topics of 92Y On Demand interviews cover a broad array of fields, from art and entertainment to business and science —you can always find an interesting topic. For example, if you are interested in the entertainment industry, go to “Art and Entertainment” where you can browse all the videos under this topic. You can also sort the content by event date or popularity. There are lots of interesting interviews, such as George Takei of Star Trek talking about his childhood, Gene Wilder discussing his disdain for the Willy Wonka remake, or the three-time Grammy award-winner Lucinda Williams talking about the journey of her career.

If you have a particular speaker in mind, you can search for the interview by Artist/Speaker. For example, if you are a fan of Game of Thrones and want to know more about its creator George R.R. Martin, you can search his name and you will find two interviews with him. You can also skim through the list of all the speakers to see if there is anyone you are interested in.

If you’re just looking for interviews during a particular period of time, you can search the content by event dates. You can find audio recordings and videos from the 1940s to the 2010s.

This breadth of the topics doesn’t compromise the depth of each talk. During the one-hour conversation, the talk doesn’t stop at the surface of the speaker’s life experience, but goes deeper to their insights into life. The scope of the interviews ranges from personal experiences, to industry changes; from a specific question in the workplace, to the persistent question of how technology affects human life.

Compared to TED Talks in which a speaker presents alone for just twenty minutes, 92Y Talks are deep interviews. The host keeps asking questions of the guest speaker, pushing them to think and speak. This form makes the information accessible for the audience.

Distribution Channels

92Y On Demand offers various channels for audiences to get access to the videos.

Website
You can go to the homepage of 92Y On Demand to check out the newest videos. If an event is happening at the time, you will be automatically directed to the live webcast of the interview.
On the right side of the page, you can see the date and time of upcoming events, and participate in these events online.

iTunes Podcast
If you are an Apple user, the easiest way to stay tuned is to subscribe to the 92Y Talks podcast on iTunes. It includes more than 50 conversations from the 92Y stage, both new and old. However, the 92Y Talks podcast only updates once a week, so someone interested in “binging” on the talks might find it unsatisfying.

Mobile App
If you prefer watching videos over listening to podcasts, you can download the 92Y On Demand mobile app on your phone. The content is categorized and the interface is clean, though it can run slow when navigating between topics. You also can’t save or download any of the videos, so you aren’t able to watch the talks without Internet access.

92Y On Demand is a useful platform where you can get access to a huge selection of recorded 92Y Talks. If you are looking for a collection of interviews given by great thinkers, 92Y On Demand is probably an app worth your time.