Current (https://current.org/2006/10/page/2/)
Yet more skepticism about HD Radio — this from John Proffitt of KAKM-TV/KSKA-FM in Anchorage, Alaska. “I’m just deeply concerned that the ‘neat’ stuff HD Radio ‘could’ do is oversold and cannot possibly deliver — not technologically, but in terms of market acceptance.”
The show from NPR and WNYC explores big ideas in science in an accessible, even addictive style.
The Los Angeles Times asks: just how far will PBS go to please a corporate sponsor?
NPR is ending its “Mixed Signals” blog but expects to create some new ones. “The scattershot nature of Mixed Signals didn’t really work,” writes JJ Sutherland, who asks the blog’s readers to share their ideas for NPR’s future blogs and online interactions with listeners.
Consultant John Sutton looks at how different methods of calculating cume audience for public radio produce varying results. “There is strong evidence that the National Public Radio network Cume is overstated by as much as 15 percent,” he says.
Slate reports on a Cornell University study that found a statistically significant link between autism rates and television viewing by children under the age of three.
Commenters on WFMU’s blog share stories about working in college radio.
Discovery has boosted its ratings by returning to its educational roots, says Advertising Age (via SmartBrief, from the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing).
Ball State University’s Center for Media Design will conduct a pilot study “examining how individuals consume traditional and emerging video platforms inside and outside the home,” reports Adweek. The study, commissioned by the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, is part of the ratings giant’s efforts to get a better handle on measuring emerging platforms such as video-on-demand and broadband video.
The University of Massachusetts-Lowell will end support for public radio’s Open Source as of December, reports the Lowell Sun. “It’s basically an expensive program that, given our financial situation, doesn’t make sense for the university,” said David MacKenzie, the university’s interim chancellor. “I just felt we had other things that were higher on the priority list.” The show’s producers “haven’t the least hesitation” in promising to keep it going, writes host and co-creator Christopher Lydon on Open Source’s blog. “We need your help and encouragement as we have from the start, or maybe just a little more so,” he tells listeners.
In the kid’s media biz, “the buzz today is around Disney,” according to the New York Times.
PBS TeacherSource blogger Andy Carvin is underwhelmed by Google for Educators, a new website for K-12 teachers.
CPB hired ad and PR veteran Del Galloway to lead its Public Awareness initiative.
Bill Moyers on PBS, from a Boston Globe Q-and-A: “It’s a place where if you fight you can survive, but it’s not easy. The fact of the matter is that Kenneth Tomlinson had a chilling effect down the line.”
Ebon Dooley, co-founder and broadcast director of WRFG-FM in Atlanta, died Oct. 12, according to the station. Dooley also represented affiliate stations on the Board of Directors of the Pacifica Foundation. Greg Guma, Pacifica’s executive director, called Dooley “a warm and courageous man.” “He was truly committed to the idea that radio could bring about social change, that the things we do make an actual difference,” said a WRFG host in the Atlanta Progressive News.
More on the resignation of NPR’s Bill Marimow in the Baltimore Sun. “He was committed to excellent journalism, but the job also requires attention to other things, to radio programming and the connection of that programming to member stations,” Jay Kernis, NPR’s v.p. of programming, tells the paper. “His attention was focused on part of the picture, and we needed focus on a bigger picture.” Also, the latest version of the New York Times’ article.
Bill Marimow resigned last night as NPR’s v.p. of news and will become its ombudsman, reports the Washington Post. NPR staffers told the Post that Marimow and Jay Kernis, v.p. of programming and his immediate boss, had clashed about “the scope and nature of his responsibilities.” UPDATE: The New York Times has posted an expanded version of its original article. “Colleagues said that Mr. Marimow, a long-time print journalist and investigative reporter, was perceived as having failed to adapt quickly enough to radio, particularly as radio converges with the Internet,” the Times reports. “They also said that he was on the wrong side of an internal power struggle.”
This American Life will offer its show in podcast form for the first time starting this weekend. Each episode will be available free for a week, and subscribers to the show’s podcast through Audible.com will get a refund. TAL’s listeners have been critical of the show’s approach to digital delivery.
The FCC will not accept minor change applications during the application window for an upcoming auction, according to Radio World.
Your next cheeses from Wisconsin might come from goats named after Cokie Roberts and Nina Totenberg, notes the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Fantome Farm in Ridgeway, Wis., is home to a herd of goats named after “inspiring women,” including the NPR analyst and reporter. (Via NPR’s Mixed Signals.)