Current (https://current.org/1996/11/)
KQED has dropped plans for a public TV documentary about pioneering Napa Valley winemaker Robert Mondavi after widespread newspaper reports that an organization funded largely by Mondavi had supplied the first and only seed money.
Observers are watching hopefully as Laura Walker, the first CEO hired to run WNYC as a private entity, sets out to double WNYC’s weekly cume and make it a high-energy, high-profile and spiritually indigenous New York cultural and news center.
The New York Botanical Garden, still fighting the completion of a nearby 480-foot tower for WFUV-FM, told the FCC late in October that the station should disguise the antenna as a 185-foot double flagpole. In its reply to the commission, WFUV said the notion was “without technical or practical merit” and asked for approval of its construction permit. The botanists are “trying to sidetrack the commission” and extend the two-and-a-half-year delay, says Ralph Jennings, g.m. Before proposing the double flagpole, the garden had suggested a stone tower to hold the antenna, but it was not feasible, he says. “All these things would be pretty, but they’re about 200 feet high, which is no higher than what we’ve got now.” The garden hired Washington engineers Cohen, Dippell and Everist to work with architects, who came up with the flagpole design, and commended the idea to other communities where stark towers are planned.