Buyer will take Nightly Business Report to ‘a new level’

WPBT sells to entrepreneur with history of legal disputes: Mykalai Kontilai, whose NBR Worldwide this month purchased Nightly Business Report, a staple of public TV carried five nights a week on 250 stations, talks about how his years as an instructional television distributor gave him a strong sense of public broadcasting values. ¶ He talks about how he’ll use that background to develop an educational outreach using the show to teach real-world financial responsibility. He talks of his plans to bring NBR to international audiences. ¶ What he doesn’t want to discuss are more than 20 lawsuits from 1999 through 2010 filed in San Diego County Superior Court against him or his companies — including five alleging breach of contract.

Journalists counted: 3,200 pros; 6,000 total

Public broadcasting has 3,242 professional journalists plus 2,765 nonprofessionals contributing to its reporting, according to a census by a team from Public Radio News Directors Inc. and commissioned by CPB. Probably three-quarters work in radio. ¶ The survey late in July includes responses from 90 percent of CPB-assisted stations. PRNDI’s census team will submit a more detailed report to CPB in a few weeks, according to Mike Marcotte, leader of the team that also included Ken Mills and Steve Martin.

Adding 2nd service in Houston, KUHF buys Rice U. station

The University of Houston is buying KTRU-FM, a 50,000-watt student radio station owned by Rice University, and will convert it to a full-time classical music service under the new call letters KUHC. ¶ KUHF-FM, launched by the University of Houston with student volunteers in 1950, will become an all-news station. It currently airs a split format of classical music and NPR News. ¶ Houston is the latest of several big markets where public radio licensees have added new frequencies to expand the range of their format offerings.

AM proves to be a hard sell,
even for news radio

An added FM channel comes
to Tampa Bay, too

Snap Judgment: latest in harvest from ’07 Talent Quest

Snap Judgment, one of three new shows conceived from the CPB-backed Public Radio Talent Quest, has become a whirlwind of multimedia production with the launch of its weekly radio programs in July, live stage shows, and television piloting.

KQED ’s Quest wins Environmental Journalists ’ top award for third time

And public radio won six of the eight radio awards from the National Association of Black Journalists this year. Pictured: scientist Healy Hamilton, featured on Quest, was smitten during her first encounter with a seahorse.

KCET warns it may leave PBS

Jerome cites dues grievance, backs L.A. consortium: After negotiating with PBS for eight months over a proposal to reduce its dues and remake public TV in the Los Angeles market, the city’s biggest public station announced last week that it is preparing to completely drop out of the network. ¶ If KCET proceeds with its back-up plan for financial relief, as of Jan. 1 PBS would be left without a station committed to air the bulk of its schedule in the nation’s second-largest media market. It would be the first departure of a major-market member in the network’s history.

Other L.A. stations like the consortium plan so much, they say it’s theirs

San Mateo’s KCSM: A smaller station finds there is life after PBS

KQED beefs up news for radio,
web audiences

San Francisco’s KQED has expanded its news operation — radio and online — adding eight to its staff and nearly $1 million to its annual spending, the station announced July 19. New output includes additional local newscasts on its FM schedule and an all-news website, kqednews.org, that integrates the station’s own coverage with news from NPR and PBS. ¶ KQED’s newsroom began producing 10 additional radio newscasts per weekday, nearly doubling its previous output of 6. ...

First Voices: a pubTV first about the original Americans

A small Native tribe near San Bernardino, Calif. — the San Manuel Band of Serrano Mission Indians — has pledged $6 million over three years to help pubTV station KVCR develop what the partners say will be the first national TV channel about Native Americans. ¶ Larry R. Ciecalone, KVCR president, expects the channel will launch in spring 2011 ...

Connecticut network board joins Grossman in call for review of pubTV

“You get very little sense of the future here,” says Larry Grossman, thinking about PBS program offerings. ¶ Though the onetime PBS president still enjoys watching some of the network’s icon series, he notes that many were already airing when he managed PBS three decades ago. “I don’t get a sense that there is significant new programming that is exciting, that is different.” ¶ Last month, Grossman found a roomful of people who share his worries — his fellow board members of Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network.

UNC-TV lays down press shield

As ‘state agency,’ network surrenders reporter’s materials. Is a public TV station licensed to a state university system an agency of the state if a legislative committee says so? Attorneys and management at North Carolina’s UNC-TV network conceded that it is, and earlier this month obeyed a General Assembly committee’s demands that it turn over reporting materials from a journalist’s investigation into the licensing of hydroelectric dams by aluminum giant Alcoa. (Pictured: one of Alcoa's dams and the smelter that they powered. Photo credits here)

Uproar over Fresh Air in Mississippi

After Mississippi Public Broadcasting abruptly dropped Fresh Air from its radio schedule July 8, its explanation of “recurring inappropriate content” in the talk show didn’t sit well with fans of the program. ¶ Judith Lewis, executive director of the state-operated Mississippi Public Broadcasting TV and radio networks, decided to cancel Fresh Air one day after its interview with comedian Louis C.K., but MPB took a drubbing from angry listeners and snarky bloggers over the decision before conceding that host Terry Gross’s conversation with the star of the FX television series Louie prompted the cancellation. ¶ Two weeks later, Lewis is reconsidering the decision, she told Current. MPB may put Fresh Air back in the schedule at a later hour. Pictured: MPB chief Judith Lewis and Fresh Air host Terry Gross.

Forty percent of MPR member revenue comes from renewal-free sustainers. As sustainer support rises, pledge drive days fall away. (Chart: MPR.)

Sustainers: more efficiency and stability, shorter pledge drives

A commentary by Valerie Arganbright of Minnesota Public Radio: After a decade, sustaining members have given four times as much, net. Everywhere you look these days, there’s a different message on the state of the economy: the Dow is up, the Dow is down, hiring is up, the recovery is jobless. If anything is certain, it’s that the outlook remains very uncertain. ¶ It’s a genuine blessing, therefore, that sustaining members can put a little more certainty into your station’s life. ¶ Since Minnesota Public Radio began its sustaining member program in 2007, it has revolutionized the way we generate financial support from our audiences ...

More recent awards: Daytime Creative Arts Emmys, Public Radio News Directors, RTDNA national Murrows,

Pubcasters keep funds in some state budgets

State funding for public stations has dropped in state after state as the recession gnaws away their tax bases, but a number of stations have used creative advocacy to argue, with some success, for a higher place in legislators’ priorities. ¶ In Idaho, citizen lobbyists wearing feathers in Big Bird yellow on their nametags helped stave off a four-year funding phaseout....

Schedule: web platform model by year’s end

An NPR-led project this month officially launched planning for a joint Public Media Platform to put public radio and TV content on the Web and mobile devices. By year’s end it aims to create a “proof of concept” prototype.

Accounting problems cost WNET $1 for every $7 in federal grants

WNET’s accounting problems have cost it $1.96 million out of a series of production grants totaling $13 million, following a two-year federal investigation of the big New York station’s grant accounting. ¶ Federal lawyers and the licensee — Educational Broadcasting Corp., now officially known as WNET.org — signed a settlement in which the station gave up 15 percent of the grant money.

Lip sync and digital TV's other audio problems — and opportunities

PBS Quality Group member Bruce Jacobs looks at the causes and cures (not always easy) for lip-sync and loudness problems and the outlook for multichannel sound. (Pictured: The late singer Mario Lanza suffers seriously bad lip-sync.)

Government officials critical of nonprofit Friends units

Nonprofit fundraising arms of the state-owned network in West Virginia and the school-board-operated stations in Miami are under fire as public officials scrutinize longstanding financial relationships that underpin their operations.

Public affairs: What the invisible hand of the news market leaves all too invisible

Commentary by James T. Hamilton, Duke University:Public affairs is an important kind of programming that warrants special attention from public media. Economists would say the market for news and discussion that helps keep our democracy healthy is suffering a historic market failure. ¶ If you think about what people want from media, you’ll find that people look for a number of different kinds of information. I count four types of information demands ...

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