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NPR has created a tribute page to Bob Edwards, who leaves Morning Edition today.
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The Agriculture Department has named a second round of rural public TV stations awarded DTV conversion aid. Eighteen stations received $14 million, including WVPT in Harrisonburg, Va. and Wyoming PTV, which got $2 million each, and KIXE in Redding, Calif., which got $1.5 million. South Dakota ETV and WSKG in Binghamton, N.Y., each received $1.2 million.
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In a Star Tribune op-ed, chairs of Minnesota Public Radio’s corporate boards explain and defend the network’s unorthodox use of funds from for-profit sister ventures (reg. req.).
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In its early days, KQED was “boiling with ideas,” says an old timer in the San Francisco Chronicle’s series marking the station’s 50th anniversary this week. [See also David Stewart’s retrospective from Current.] The first public TV station, KUHT, celebrated its 50th last year. Also turning 50 this year are stations in East Lansing, Mich.; Pittsburgh; Madison, Wis.; Cincinnati; St. Louis; Lincoln, Neb.; and Seattle.
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It’s Bob Edwards’ final week on Morning Edition, and articles in Newsday and the Washington Post highlight the impending change. NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin addresses the persisting woes of Edwards’ fans: “In some cases, listeners ended their messages to me in tears, unable to go on.” (More in the Houston Chronicle.)
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In case you can’t remember what cicadas sound like, the University of Michigan offers audio files along with close-up photos and detailed text. Public broadcasters will have to put up with it just like everybody else.
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Not waiting until Morning Edition’s 25th anniversary to reassign host Bob Edwards made NPR executives looked as if “we didn’t care about Bob,” says NPR Executive Vice President Ken Stern in the Philadelphia Inquirer (reg. req.).
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A Japanese company will sponsor a British knight’s series on American innovators. WGBH says Olympus backed Sir Harold Evans’ They Made America, on PBS in November.
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Tom Silva of This Old House explains why America is losing its home-repair mojo in Boston Globe Magazine.
System/Policy
Standing on its own, WNYC takes cues from New York City’s vitality
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“We don’t do anything in a small way,” says Laura Walker, and in her eight years as president of New York’s WNYC the station has learned to live large.
Programs/Content
As cume slips, duo aims to keep PBS ‘relevant’
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For the past four years under PBS President Pat Mitchell, the network has had two chief program executives — at headquarters in Alexandria, Va., John Wilson, a veteran public TV programmer who came to PBS a decade ago from KAET in Phoenix; and in Los Angeles, Jacoba (Coby) Atlas, a news and documentary producer who previously worked with Mitchell at CNN. In this interview they describe for the first time a new formal practice of using minimum ratings, along with other factors, to judge the success of programs. They also discuss brainstorming with producers to create new programs and the tight budgets that limit how many new things PBS can try. Atlas and Wilson spoke with Current at PBS headquarters and later by phone. This transcript is edited. Setting ratings floors
In your programming plan in the PBS budget for next year, you talk about establishing a new set of goals for judging programs. What factors will you consider?
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Some NPR listeners thought Don Gonyea, the network’s White House reporter, was rude to the President last week. Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin says in his latest column that Gonyea was “well within the bounds of fair journalistic practice.” (Via Romenesko.) Also: Ketzel Levine’s interview with Laura Bush, and 35,000 e-mails about Bob.
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The FCC’s April 15 request for comments on rule changes required for digital radio is online. (PDF.)
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Former WFMU DJ Douglas Wolk looks at filthy words and the FCC’s shifting definition of profanity in this Village Voice essay.
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The FCC will hold an auction for nonreserved FM spectrum Nov. 3 that was postponed from 2001. (PDF.) The auction was delayed while the FCC and broadcasters debated how to handle cases in which noncommercial broadcasters apply for nonreserved spectrum. They resolved that muddle last year. Noncommercial broadcasters have tried to reserve frequencies at stake in the November auction, as detailed in FCC releases (3/24, 4/2, 4/12, 4/14).
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Roger Chesser, outgoing g.m. of WUKY-FM in Lexington, Ky., looks back on his career in the Lexington Herald-Leader.
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BBC America reaches less than half of US cable homes but it’s earning notice with its mix of edgy British fare. “We found a way to bring some of the best British television to America,” says chief executive Paul Lee in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
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Arguing that cable must-carry rules for DTV would be a huge giveaway to broadcasters, progressive groups are asking Congress and the FCC to set minimum standards for broadcasters’ coverage of elections and civic affairs. That’s the point of an online petition by Common Cause, for example. In Columbia Journalism Review, Neil Hickey watches as media reformers enter what was previously a joust between two media industries.
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Orlando Sentinel TV critic Hal Boedeker urges anyone with $6 million in spare change to aid Masterpiece Theatre: “Won’t someone step forward and save TV’s classiest program?”
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Lefty columnist Norman Soloman challenges Jim Lehrer to “set the factual record straight” on a (mis)statement he made during an April 7 NewsHour interview.