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Conservative columnist Brent Bozell informs us that NPR didn’t really need the $200 million gift from Joan “Mommy Peacebucks” Kroc. The Media Research Center also scoffs at the idea that Kroc saw NPR as “objective.”
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Ken Stern, NPR’s executive v.p., tells the New York Daily News much of the income from Joan Kroc’s $200 million gift will fund programming. “We see moving from an era of limitations to an era of possibilities,” he says.
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Kentucky’s Georgetown College sold public station WRVG-FM, as Current reported, but got a permit last week to start a low-power FM station, reports the Lexington Herald-Leader.
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PBS will add a public affairs show featuring Tucker Carlson, conservative cohost of CNN’s Crossfire, to its line-up by next June, reports Television Week and the Washington Post [scroll down].
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In an Akron Beacon Journal article, a public radio g.m. worries that Joan Kroc’s $200 million gift to NPR might discourage potential donors from giving to their local stations. The Boston Globe sends NPR a wish list. And a San Diego Union-Tribune editorial praises NPR.
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More coverage of Joan Kroc’s gift to NPR in the Boston Globe, Washington Post, New York Times and from NPR itself. (Some via Romenesko.) And John Gibson of Fox News asks, “Do you think this will teach NPR that they ought to be nicer about some things they don’t agree with, like burgers and fries and eating cows?”
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Miami Herald Publisher Albuerto Ibarguen is the new chairman of the PBS Board. He describes PBS’s challenges to differentiate and finance its services in a report in today’s Herald.
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The late philanthropist Joan Kroc left NPR a gift of $200 million–about double the network’s annual operating budget, reports the Washington Post. She also left $5 million to her hometown public station, KPBS, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. The gift is the largest single donation in KPBS’s history. (More via Google News.)
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Tomorrow (Nov. 6) NPR will announce that it is receiving the largest monetary gift ever given to a U.S. cultural institution. No word yet on the donor or the amount.
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Todd Mundt said he quit his NPR show because he was “burned out,” according to the Battle Creek Enquirer.
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MPT re-tools the format for Wall Street Week with Fortune: “It’s not about a bunch of people on the set sitting around and picking stocks, that’s for sure,” executive producer Larry Moscow tells the Baltimore Sun.
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The New Yorker takes note of Brooklyn’s Pintchik Oracle, a feature on public radio’s The Next Big Thing.
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The FCC approved technology, called the “broadcast flag,” to protect digital TV shows from being copied and distributed freely over the Internet. Broadcasters won a key concession from the commission, which declined to exempt news and public affairs programming from the new protections (PDF).
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The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports on the Daystar Television Network, the Christian broadcasting service that is expanding its reach by acquiring licenses to public TV stations. Reporter Darren Barbee charts the network’s rapid growth and examines the fundraising practices of its televangelists. This summer, Daystar bid on KOCE in Orange County, Calif., and purchased Dallas public TV outlet KDTN.
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Benetton has hired Kurt Andersen, host of public radio’s Studio 360, as editorial director of Colors, its multi-culti magazine.
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Officials at Miami’s WLRN-FM face charges of racism after axing two Caribbean-themed shows, reports The Miami Herald. WLRN’s station manager defends the move as a way of making the station more consistently appealing to listeners.
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The FCC has eased DTV simulcasting requirements for three public TV stations: KEDT in Corpus Christi, Texas; KTWU in Topeka, Kan.; and Pittsburgh’s WQED. The commission requires all public stations to simulcast half of their analog programming on their digital channels (PDF).