Programs/Content

CPB IG audit questions spending by Capitol News Connection

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An audit by the CPB Inspector General’s Office of Pundit Productions, the nonprofit that operated a public radio news bureau on Capitol Hill until its shutdown last fall, found violations of several CPB grant requirements and recommended that Pundit return more than $35,000 in grant monies. At CPB management’s request, the IG examined how Pundit spent a $300,000 grant provided by CPB in 2011 for a “transition project” intended to develop a long-term business plan and pricing model. The nonprofit bureau, run by Melinda Wittstock, relied heavily on CPB’s assistance, receiving grants totalling $2.3 million since its start-up in 2003. For the 2011 grant, CPB covered slightly less than half of the $688,036 budget for the business planning. The IG spotted violations with $81,013 in expenses, ranging in scope from more than $40,000 in depreciation charges to payments of $285 that covered reporters’ parking tickets.

System/Policy

CPB report to Capitol Hill countering “continued and pervasive” opposition to federal funding

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CPB’s financial analysis on alternative funding sources for public broadcasting, prepared by consultants at Booz & Co.  and delivered to Congress in June, has had little impact on lawmakers’ views about continuation of CPB’s annual federal appropriation to date, CPB staff reported during a Sept. 10 board meeting  in Washington, D.C.

In the report, analysts for Booz examined a range of options for replacing CPB’s federal aid — from selling commercial advertising to tapping spectrum auction proceeds or selling pay-channel subscriptions, among others. They concluded that withdrawal of federal aid would have a “cascading debilitating effect,” starting first with stations serving rural areas and ultimately leading to collapse of the public broadcasting system. The dire predictions haven’t made much difference in swaying lawmakers on Capitol Hill, CPB’s government affairs staff reported to the board.  “I think it’s fair to say that in the past two-and-a-half months there’s been a little change in the conversation regarding funding for public broadcasting, and the idea of commercials,” said Michael Levy, CPB executive vice president.  CPB staff have been meeting with key Republicans and Democrats on the House and Senate appropriations committees to discuss why a purely commercial model for public broadcasting is not a viable option. The Booz analysis predicted that public TV could earn more revenue from commercial advertising sales than it now does from underwriting, but the switch to ads would prompt a large portion of those who provide private support to the field —  individual donors, foundations and underwriters  — to withdraw their support, resulting in a net revenue loss.

American Graduate
Student participants in WUNC's Summer Youth Radio Institute

Pubcasting tackles dropout crisis

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The massive American Graduate project is all about potential — the potential of students who stay in school to graduate, as well as the potential of public broadcasting stations to serve as community conveners.

Development

If CPB is defunded, 130 stations ‘at high risk’

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What if Congress stopped allocating federal aid to pubcasting? The latest bleak financial analysis from CPB, released last week, adds some specifics about how service would be affected in dozens of congressional districts across the land. Fifty-four public TV licensees in 19 states and 76 public radio operators in 38 states would be “at high risk of no longer being able to sustain operations” if federal aid ends, CPB asserts in a report backed by Booz & Co. and delivered to the appropriation committees June 20. Congress asked CPB for a report on the field’s economic options when lawmakers approved the most recent advance appropriation in December.

Programs/Content

CPB provides ITVS with grant to complete OVEE work

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The CPB Board of Directors approved a supplementary grant of $575,000 June 14 to the Independent Television Service for completion of its Online Video Engagement Experience (OVEE), a digital platform that allows moderated interactive online screenings of video content streamed through PBS.org. CPB had backed development of the technology in 2010 with $954,000. The additional funding will support development of technical capabilities to run OVEE on mobile devices and stream live events, such as debates and town-hall meetings — enhancements requested by all five OVEE pilot stations. CPB management presented the grant request to the board at its June 4 meeting, but approval was postponed after Chair Bruce Ramer questioned whether the corporation should take an ownership stake in innovative projects such as OVEE (Current, June 11). The board agreed to take more time to consider the grant and delayed the vote.

Programs/Content

CPB grant to NPR backs expanding foreign coverage

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CPB has awarded a $500,000 grant to NPR to support the network’s international news coverage. The grant, announced at a March 26 awards dinner honoring NPR correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, will support salaries and travel costs for reporters and producers in Jerusalem, Cairo, Beirut, Shanghai and Beijing. Last year NPR spent more than it had anticipated covering the Arab uprisings and the earthquake and nuclear disaster in Japan. As NPR’s foreign desk steps up its reporting from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, reporters are putting themselves “on the front line of historic news events,” said CPB Chair Bruce Ramer, who announced the grant. “This will help NPR stay on the story as long as it takes.”

“This is going to be so important for our work,” said NPR President Gary Knell.

Public Media Policybase

Corporation for Public Broadcasting authorizing law as of June 2012

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47 USC § 396, or U.S. Code, Title 47, Chapter 5, Subchapter III, Part IV, subpart d, § 396
This compilation of federal law was posted freely by the Legal Information Institute of Cornell University Law School. See LII for the latest preliminary (subject to revision) and final versions. (a) Congressional declaration of policy
The Congress hereby finds and declares that—
(1) it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes;
(2) it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of nonbroadcast telecommunications technologies for the delivery of public telecommunications services;
(3) expansion and development of public telecommunications and of diversity of its programming depend on freedom, imagination, and initiative on both local and national levels;
(4) the encouragement and support of public telecommunications, while matters of importance for private and local development, are also of appropriate and important concern to the Federal Government;
(5) it furthers the general welfare to encourage public telecommunications services which will be responsive to the interests of people both in particular localities and throughout the United States, which will constitute an expression of diversity and excellence, and which will constitute a source of alternative telecommunications services for all the citizens of the Nation;
(6) it is in the public interest to encourage the development of programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities;
(7) it is necessary and appropriate for the Federal Government to complement, assist, and support a national policy that will most effectively make public telecommunications services available to all citizens of the United States;
(8) public television and radio stations and public telecommunications services constitute valuable local community resources for utilizing electronic media to address national concerns and solve local problems through community programs and outreach programs;
(9) it is in the public interest for the Federal Government to ensure that all citizens of the United States have access to public telecommunications services through all appropriate available telecommunications distribution technologies; and
(10) a private corporation should be created to facilitate the development of public telecommunications and to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control. (b) Establishment of Corporation; application of District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act
There is authorized to be established a nonprofit corporation, to be known as the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting”, which will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government. The Corporation shall be subject to the provisions of this section, and, to the extent consistent with this section, to the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act.

APTS

APTS combats latest bids to defund CPB

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Two of pubcasting’s chief critics on Capitol Hill have revived their bids to end CPB funding. Republican lawmakers Rep. Doug Lamborn (Colo.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) circulated letters last week asking colleagues to help them “permanently defund” CPB. They are targeting the $445 million advance-funded appropriation proposed for CPB in 2015. CPB’s requested appropriation “represents no reduction from its prior year appropriation level,” the lawmakers wrote. “While so many Americans are making sacrifices around the country to make ends meet, CPB appears unwilling to do the same.” They said the country is more than $15 trillion in debt, and ending support of CPB “should be one of the easier decisions to make.”

The lawmakers point to compensation of two top pubcasting execs to bolster their political case.

CPB

Former communications head at CPB, Stanley Harrison, dies at 81

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Stanley Harrison, a former communications director for CPB, died of cardiac arrest on April 5 in Miami Beach, Fla., six days before his 82nd birthday. He had suffered a stroke in November 2011. Harrison oversaw public relations and publications for CPB from 1976 to 1985, where his office was distinguished by a haze of cigar smoke. After CPB, he followed the corporation’s past president, Ed Pfister, to the University of Miami’s School of Communication, where Pfister became dean. Harrison remained a professor of public relations at the school.

CPB

Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (nearly original)

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Public Law 90-129, 90th Congress, November 7, 1967 (as amended to April 26, 1968)
Enacted less than 10 months after the report of the Carnegie Commission on Educational Broadcasting, this law initiates federal aid to the operation (as opposed to funding capital facilities) of public broadcasting. Provisions include:

extend authorization of the earlier Educational Television Facilities Act,
forbid educational broadcasting stations to editorialize or support or oppose political candidates,
establish the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and defines its board,
defines its purposes,
authorize reduced telecommunications rates for its interconnection,
authorize appropriations to CPB, and
authorize a federal study of instructional television and radio. Title I—Construction of Facilities
Extension of duration of construction grants for educational broadcasting

Sec. 101. (a) Section 391 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 391) is amended by inserting after the first sentence the following new sentence: “There are also authorized to be appropriated for carrying out the purposes of such section, $10,500,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1968, $12,500,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1969, and $15,000,000 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970.”

(b) The last sentence of such section is amended by striking out “July 1, 1968” and inserting in lieu thereof “July 1,1971.”

Maximum on grants in any State

Sec.

Tech

Jacksonville to host second centralcast facility for public TV

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The pull of economic strains and push of technical advancements continue to spark collaborations among stations, with seven pubTV outlets signing onto a CPB-backed joint master-control project in Florida and two Oregon stations preparing to link via fiber lines and share a single schedule. The CPB Board on March 27 unanimously approved a $7 million grant for a centralcasting facility that will serve six stations in Florida and one in Georgia. The Jacksonville Digital Convergence Alliance LLC will run one master control with customized programming streams for WJCT in Jacksonville; WFSU, Tallahassee; WPBT, Miami; WBCC/WUCF, Orlando; Tampa stations WUSF and WEDU; and WPBA, Atlanta. Depending on how many additional stations sign on, the participating pubcasters will save as much as $20 million over 10 years, according to CPB’s estimates. Cost savings have become imperative, as CPB’s supplementary appropriation for digital projects is nearly depleted.

Collaboration

CPB will give guidelines to journalism hubs

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CPB is evaluating proposals from six regional journalism hubs for another year of operation and will furnish the centers with a shared set of best practices to follow if they receive additional funding. The guidelines will be designed to address challenges that the seven Local Journalism Centers have encountered during their two years of growth, such as negotiating editorial control and finding paths toward financial sustainability. Launched in 2010 with $10.5 million in CPB funding, the LJCs brought public broadcasters together in regional collaborations to report on focused areas of coverage, such as agriculture, border issues and health care. With the hubs entering their third year of operation, CPB hired a consultant to review which LJCs have succeeded, which have struggled and which factors have made the difference. At a meeting of the CPB Board March 26, interactive-media consultant Rusty Coats reported that four LJCs have established a clear voice and focus throughout their editorial products, while the rest have faced greater challenges.

Programs/Content

Ombudsman seeks details on WAMU ‘meet the producers’ event

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CPB ombudsman Joel Kaplan has urged WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., to release more information about a gathering of major donors and station journalists that prompted the Feb. 22 resignation of WAMU News Director Jim Asendio. The “Meet the Producers Breakfast” featured a panel discussion among WAMU reporters and producers for an audience of about 30 donors who had recently increased their annual contributions to at least $1,000. Asendio said he resigned because he believed the event had breached an ethical firewall insulating station journalists from funders. In Kaplan’s comments, posted March 2 on CPB.org, the ombudsman did not explicitly condemn the event but wrote that the issue “goes to the heart of the station’s ethics.”

“The public deserves more from WAMU,” Kaplan wrote.

People

Daniel del Solar, 71, believer in progressive public media

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Daniel del Solar, 71, a Chilean-American media activist, poet and photographer who headed training for CPB in its early days and later managed countercultural stations in San Francisco and Philadelphia, died Jan. 13 in Oakland, Calif. He had prostate cancer. Del Solar served as director of training and development at CPB in the late 1970s, during a period of active recruitment and training of ethnic-minority professionals. He later became g.m. of San Francisco’s KALW-FM from 1985 to 1992 and of Philadelphia’s WYBE-TV from 1992 to 1995.

People

NPR promotes Wilson to chief content officer, Arnold departs PRI, and more…

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NPR President Gary Knell has restructured the news organization’s top ranks, elevating digital chief Kinsey Wilson to executive v.p. and chief content officer and appointing Margaret Low Smith senior v.p. of news, a job she took on an interim basis last year. When Wilson joined NPR as senior v.p. and general manager of digital media in 2008, the position was parallel to the senior news exec post then held by Ellen Weiss. Knell’s restructuring elevates Wilson in NPR’s organization chart to supervise all of NPR’s content areas — news, programming and digital media. “In Kinsey and Margaret, we have two journalists, strategists and leaders with a keen understanding of the craft that distinguishes NPR — and how we continue to innovate and evolve,” Knell said in a news release. The new structure allows for greater coordination of NPR’s news, digital and programming strategies, and a “more seamless integration” of its news operations, according to the release.

System/Policy

Identity: How Dayton-Cincinnati made their merger work

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Matchmaking requires openness, compatibility, shared goals and maintaining a strong sense of identity. That’s the advice for public broadcasters looking to merge, as well as for doe-eyed sweethearts. CET in Cincinnati and ThinkTV in Dayton made the leap nearly three years ago, and by most accounts their union looks strong. The two stations, just 50 miles apart in separate southwestern Ohio media markets, are now incorporated as Public Media Connect and serve a region of 1.4 million households and more than 3.5 million people. Together they showed an operating deficit last year, as did many stations, but the budget gap has been shrinking and is projected to go positive this year.