Quick Takes
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He’s no Elvis: The NPR fleece jacket purportedly worn by Bob Edwards has gone for $43 on eBay — $9 less than what you can pay for what looks like the same item at the NPR Shop.
Quick Takes
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Members of Metafilter discuss Minnesota Public Radio’s new KCMP, with reactions ranging from “Now I can finally listen to music on the radio again” to “I could be unlucky, but every time I turn it on it sucks.” More praise in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune: “The idea that Public Radio would venture beyond All Things Considered and the lesser-known works of Dvorak to offer an alternative to popular music is so sensible, both as a business and cultural decision, it is remarkable it took so long.”
Quick Takes
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When you’re Ira Glass’s girlfriend, “you have to put up with a lot of him thinking about his job rather than what’s going on in front of him,” says his squeeze in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
System/Policy
APTS, cablers craft digital carriage deal
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The Association of Public Television Stations has struck a deal with the
cable industry in which major cable operators will guarantee to carry as
many as four program streams from all public television stations in their
markets once the digital TV transition is complete. Public TV regards multicast carriage as essential if it is to take full advantage of digital broadcasting capabilities. Cable companies now are required to carry only stations’ primary video feeds—analog or digital—in the present period before the DTV transition is done. The agreement, yet to be ratified by stations, would be triggered when stations give back their analog spectrum. It will not affect multicast deals that stations or PBS have already negotiated with cable operators.
Education/Engagement
Buster to visit gay moms on some public TV channels
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At least five public TV stations have pledged to air a controversial episode of Postcards from Buster, dropped last week by PBS, that features two families headed by lesbian parents—despite strenuous objections by the nation’s new secretary of education, whose department provides significant funding for the series. About 20 other stations were considering running the show last week after viewing a preview tape that producer WGBH beamed by satellite to member stations on Thursday, said station spokeswoman Jeanne Hopkins. The controversy over the cartoon bunny comes at an awkward time for PBS, as it prepares to compete for renewed Ready to Learn funding from the Education Department. The agency has said it will divide a $24 million pot among as many as four grantees for five-year programming and outreach contracts. In the 10-year existence of the RTL program, CPB or PBS has administered the grants.
Quick Takes
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The Philadelphia Inquirer (signup required) says WHYY has joined the pubTV stations planning to air the Postcards from Buster episode condemned by the U.S. secretary of education for featuring same-sex parents. Major stations in Boston and New York City and the Vermont and New Jersey pubTV networks say they’ll run it, too. Others won’t air the show, including Alabama PTV (Birmingham News), Detroit PTV (Detroit News), KWBU in Waco, Texas (Waco Tribune-Herald) and South Carolina ETV. In related crisis news, the creator of SpongeBob SquarePants said his kidvid characters aren’t gay. Even though they hold hands a lot, the cartoon sponge and starfish are “almost asexual,” PlanetOut.com reported.
Quick Takes
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Alberto Ibargüen, chairman of the PBS Board, will serve as president of the Knight Foundation. (Foundation press release.) He will step down as publisher of the Miami Herald. (Via Romenesko.)
Quick Takes
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The Vermont same-sex couples featured in the controversial Postcards from Buster episode regret that PBS will not distribute the episode, reports AP. “I feel betrayed as a parent,” said Tracy Harris. “We feel it’s important that we not exclude kids because of what their family structure looks like,” said a WGBH spokeswoman in the New York Times.
Quick Takes
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Floridian Dave Plotkin has apparently failed in his bid to break the world record for the longest continuous radio broadcast by a single DJ. But he’s dead set on a second attempt. “I will obliterate all comers,” he tells Current. Plotkin, who finished his 110 hours Jan. 21, didn’t know that the most recent record was 120 hours, set by Arulanantham Suresh Joachim in Canada in June 2003.
Quick Takes
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In an article about his new PBS show, Robert Krulwich tells the New York Times that his onscreen goofiness “really isn’t an act.”
Quick Takes
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An eBay user is selling an NPR jacket that he claims was worn by Bob Edwards at his final staff retreat: “I’m parting with this new and perfect item because I miss Bob and the memories are too painful.” The seller intends to donate the earnings to “American Public Radio,” which they say “used to be Public Radio International.” (Via Wonkette.)
Quick Takes
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PBS execs say they decided to withdraw an episode of Postcards from Buster before Education Secretary Margaret Spellings officially notified them that its depiction of lesbian parents was inappropriate for a federally funded educational kids program. “Sounds great if you were born yesterday,” writes Washington Post columnist Lisa De Moraes.
Quick Takes
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In one of her first acts as the new education secretary, Margaret Spellings denounced PBS for using its Ready to Learn grant to fund a children’s show depicting a lesbian couple and their children. The Boston Globe reported that producing station WGBH delayed the debut of an episode of Postcards from Buster so that stations could review it before broadcast.
Quick Takes
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A deejay at Rollins College’s WPRK-FM in Winter Park, Fla., has unofficially set the world record for the longest continuous radio broadcast by a single DJ, reports USA Today. As Current reported in 2001, another noncommercial DJ, Glen Jones, set an earlier record. (Via iloveradio.org.)
Quick Takes
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“Podcasters may indeed revitalize the art of radio itself,” writes Tod Maffin at radiocollege.org.
Public Media Policybase
Secretary of Education objects to Postcards from Buster ‘two moms’ episode, 2005
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Margaret Spellings, secretary of education in George W. Bush’s administration, complained to PBS in 2005 about an episode of the animated Postcards from Buster children’s series with funding from her department. In the episode, Buster visits a Vermont family that has two moms. See also Current story. January 25, 2005
Ms. Pat Mitchell
President and Chief Executive Officer
Public Broadcasting Service
1320 Braddock Place
Alexandria, Virginia 22314
Dear Ms. Mitchell:
The Department of Education has strong and very serious concerns about a specific Ready-To-Learn television episode, yet to be aired, that has been developed under a cooperative agreement between the Department and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). The episode — “Sugartime!” — is part of the “Postcards from Buster” series, and would feature throughout the show families headed by gay couples. As you know, the cooperative agreement that PBS is using to support these programs is designed to prepare preschool and elementary age children for school.
Quick Takes
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Garrison Keillor tells the Seattle Times his worst-ever show was in Reno, Nev.: “Every time I turned around in Reno, I just saw pathological behavior.” In the Minneapolis Star-Tribune he offers a dispatch from a cruise ship: “Were I a resident of paradise, I’d defend it to the skies, but I’m a northerner and we believe that adversity and the struggle for truth and honor are the key to the good life, not the 77-degree swimming pool.”
Quick Takes
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Clear Channel is donating $25,000 to KBEM-FM, a financially troubled noncom in Minneapolis, reports the Star-Tribune. (Reg. req.)
Quick Takes
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The profile of KCRW-FM in Santa Monica, Calif., is growing nationally among offbeat bands, “the smaller record labels that promote them and the music consumers who want to be surprised,” reports the New York Times.
Quick Takes
Powell to step down as FCC chair
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Michael Powell announced today that he will step down as chairman of the FCC effective in March, reports the Washington Post, among others (official statement here). Powell said it was time for a change after “completing a bold and aggressive agenda,” referring to his work to increase consumer access to broadband and new technologies like Internet phone service. But he’ll likely be remembered for his bold, but largely thwarted, attempts to deregulate media ownership and his aggressive campaign against perceived broadcast naughtiness. Powell also told Reuters that he planned to “tie up some loose ends on the transition to digital television” before he left the commission. See also the Associated Press (via Newsday), and the New York Times.