Quick Takes

CPB Board’s Pryor recovering after major heart surgery

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Former U.S. Sen. David Pryor, named last month to the CPB Board, is expected to make a full recovery after undergoing quadruple bypass surgery Wednesday in Little Rock, Ark., reports the Arkansas News Bureau. Pryor was admitted to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Monday night after complaining of chest tightness and pressure, the paper reports. The 72-year-old Pryor previously underwent bypass surgery following a heart attack in 1991.

Quick Takes

Austin City Limits to leave longtime home

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Austin City Limits will move out of its studio on the University of Texas campus, its home for the past 32 years, and into a new downtown Austin facility in 2009, reports the Austin American-Statesman. Bill Stotesberry, KRLU g.m., says the new theater will be roughly the same size as the current studio but will accomodate three times as many seats.

Quick Takes

PRPD general sessions

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The Public Radio Program Directors Association has posted audio files of general sessions from this year’s PRPD conference at its website.

Quick Takes

O’Bryon fills Boland’s chair in SF

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Linda O’Bryon, a creator and onetime co-anchor of pubTV’s Nightly Business Report at WPBT in Miami, joins San Francisco-based Northern California Public Broadcasting (KQED/KTEH) as chief content officer, says the Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, Fla. O’Bryon is now NBR’s executive editor and g.m. of WPBT’s NBR Enterprises. John Boland, her predecessor in San Francisco, set off an instance of musical chairs when he moved to PBS as its first chief content officer in June.

Quick Takes

Habeas Motion by PNB

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The Pacifica Foundation passed a resolution last week empowering its executive director to “use the resources of the foundation to educate and inform the public” about U.S. Senate Bill 3930, which addresses the rights of detainees. The legislation “has given President Bush extraordinary and chilling power to indefinitely detain and try prisoners in the so-called war on terror,” the resolution says.

Quick Takes

RadioSutton: New Arbitron Survey, Same Results (mostly)

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John Sutton looks at the latest national Arbitron data for public radio’s audience, which shows continuing declines in most measurements, although cume rebounded somewhat. “The loss of Share means public radio is losing ground in the radio marketplace,” he writes. “A decline in Loyalty, if further analysis shows that’s the case, means that public radio listeners are still using the radio but choosing to spend an increasing amount of the radio listening time with commercial broadcasters.”

Quick Takes

An Interview with NPR Digital’s GM Maria Thomas | Digital Media Wire

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NPR’s upcoming music website will not directly offer song downloads, says Maria Thomas, v.p. of digital media, in an interview with Digital Media Wire. Thomas also says that it’s unlikely public radio will create a central web portal, an idea espoused by Mark Fuerst, executive director of the Integrated Media Association, in a Current commentary.

Quick Takes

Motorola to offer pubradio content

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Motorola announced yesterday that it will offer programs from NPR, Public Radio International and American Public Media to mobile phones via its iRadio service.

Quick Takes

Cal State Long Beach picks Mt. Wilson as prospective operator of KKJZ-FM

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The California State Long Beach Foundation has chosen Mt. Wilson FM Broadcasters Inc. as the prospective operator of KKJZ-FM (PDF). The foundation’s Board of Directors heard recommendations tonight from an evaluation committee. Also bidding were Pacific Public Radio, the nonprofit that has run the station since 1987; Southern California Public Radio, the L.A. sibling of Minnesota Public Radio; and the Jazz Institute of Los Angeles. Mt.

Quick Takes

Ohio county to lose NPR

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Adams County in Ohio stands to lose its sole NPR station with the sale of WVXW-FM to a Christian broadcaster, reports the (West Union) People’s Defender. Cincinnati Public Radio is selling the station after acquiring it from Xavier University last year. The county’s Chamber of Commerce is urging residents to ask the FCC to block the sale.

Quick Takes

KQED asks members to give up the vote

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In a ballot mailing to 190,000 local supporters, KQED asks its members to waive their rights to vote on major corporate decisions and elections of the board of directors. “This is about money and this is about responsiveness,” Board Chair Nick Donatiello told the San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s up to the members if they want to spend this money on elections. It could buy a lot of programming.”

Quick Takes

This American Gripe

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A devoted fan of This American Life takes issue with Chicago Public Radio’s approach to offering the show’s audio online: “They could save money by encouraging filesharing of their shows instead of wasting money fighting it.”

Quick Takes

Louisiana g.m. arrested for sex solicitation

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The g.m. of a public radio station in Shreveport, La., was arrested Monday for soliciting sex from a minor over the Internet, reports the Shreveport Times. The minor was in fact an undercover officer.

Quick Takes

FAIR finds rightward bias on “NewsHour”

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In a study released yesterday, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting tracked the guests appearing on PBS’s NewsHour and found that Republican males were over-represented as news sources, according to this AP wire story.

Quick Takes

KOCE supporters react to veto

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“We’ll do everything we have to do to try and retain the license,” KOCE President Mel Rogers tells the Los Angeles Times, reacting to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s veto of a bill designed to end the legal wrangling for control of the station.

Quick Takes

Study finds PBS Kids promotes fast food too

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When her preschooler began humming the jingle from a McDonald’s commercial, Cleveland pediatrician Susan Connor decided to analyze the sponsorship spots that surround TV shows for tots. She found that fast-food companies are the predominant sponsors of preschool fare on PBS Kids and the Disney Channel, both of which “promote themselves as ad-free,” reports the Associated Press. The study, published this month in the medical journal Pediatrics, concluded that the ads targeting preschoolers on Nickelodeon and sponsorship messages on PBS and Disney “took similar approaches and used similar appeals, seeming to promote the equation that food equals fun and happiness.” [abstract]