Current (https://current.org/2004/01/page/3/)
The president of Joy Public Broadcasting opposed selling his station in Frederick, Md., to Baltimore pubcaster WYPR, reports the Baltimore Sun. “I don’t like NPR,” Lowell Bush said. “I don’t like the homosexual content.” His board outvoted him, however.
The Big Four commercial networks air 58 minutes of ads in primetime every night, 36 percent more than they did in 1991, MediaLife magazine reported. Their commercial breaks have gotten 41 percent longer since 1998.
Tom Keith, sound-effects guy for A Prairie Home Companion, discusses the Zen of his craft with the Capital Times: “You can’t just stand there and make the sound. You have to move, be the ski.”
“As the radio industry continues to consolidate, our responsibility to program challenging music and public affairs programs becomes that much greater,” says pubradio veteran Steve Robinson in the Boston Globe, which reports on his acceptance of an ASCAP award.
Elections for Pacifica’s Local Station Boards are looming, and candidates for the boards of KPFK-FM in Los Angeles and WBAI-FM in New York have started websites.
Baltimore public radio station WYPR bought WJTM-FM in Frederick, expanding its reach toward western Maryland, Radio & Records reported. Selling the Frederick outlet for a reported $1.2 million was a religious broadcaster, Joy Public Broadcasting. Both stations broadcast at 88.1 MHz.
PBS will carry the $7 million cost of Masterpiece Theatre for two years, President Pat Mitchell told TV critics during the winter press tour, but the network is perplexed and unhappy about it, according to Associated Press and Washington Post reports.
The Association of Independents in Radio Member Spotlight features sound artist and producer Aaron Ximm, Monday, Jan. 12 at 8 p.m. ET.
Elizabeth Campbell, founder of Washington’s WETA-FM/TV, died today of a respiratory ailment, Washingtonpost.com reported. She was 101. In a 1993 Current interview she pictured herself as a do-er who “didn’t have time for doubts.” More about Campbell can be found at WETA’s website.
Minnesota Public Radio will stop producing The Savvy Traveler March 26, according to the network. The show was unable to sell enough underwriting to support itself due to the travel industry’s post-9/11 downturn. Its spotty presence in major markets also weakened its appeal to potential backers. Savvy Traveler airs on 163 stations. [Show website.]
CPB and Target Analysis Group have released the second installment of the Public Radio Quarterly Index of Fundraising Performance.
The Knight Foundation has given PBS $200,000 to develop a proposal for a public affairs channel, the network announced. Contrary to this AP report, however, PBS told Current that the channel probably would be a DTV multicast channel to be aired by public TV stations, not a “cable channel,” as AP said. PBS President Pat Mitchell had said in June that public affairs and the arts were content options for new PBS channels. Current reported last year on the variety of multicast channels foreseen by stations.
“This may be the holiday season that satellite radio began to show its promise,” says the Washington Post.
A jazz host on WFPK-FM in Louisville, Ky., resigned rather than stifle her public criticism of the station’s decision to reduce jazz programming, reports the Courier-Journal.
Alabama Public Radio averted canceling big-name national shows by raising $20,000 in an emergency fund drive, reports the Associated Press.
NPR presents the first public demonstration of its Tomorrow Radio project at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The digital technology will allow radio broadcasters to transmit two separate channels on one frequency.
Milwaukee Public Schools is negotiating a contract with local group Radio for Milwaukee to run its public radio station, WYMS-FM.
“I want to use this show … to introduce Americans to each other,” says Tavis Smiley of his public TV show, debuting this week on more than 100 stations. [Show’s website.]
Conflict with General Manager Steve Spencer and other tensions prompted at least five employees to leave WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, Ohio, in recent years, reports the Yellow Springs News.
Samuel Freedman in USA Today lauds the radio documentary form, “a rebellion against the numbing conformity of commercial radio” and a style that he says is enjoying its heyday.