People

Ex-NBC news exec will manage WNET

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Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News until 16 months ago, will succeed William Baker as president and c.e.o. of New York’s WNET. Shapiro, 48, a 25-year veteran of network news who ran NBC’s Dateline before heading NBC’s global news operations, will assume one of Baker’s titles next month, serving for a year as president while Baker remains c.e.o. Baker will relinquish the chief exec role next February, becoming president emeritus. The board of Educational Broadcasting Corp., licensee of both WNET and WLIW in Long Island, unanimously approved the transition plan on Jan. 18, ending a year-long executive recruitment process that began as a search to replace Paula Kerger, former c.o.o., who left WNET to become PBS president last March. “As we did the search I realized that, ultimately, this person has to be capable of replacing me,” said Baker.

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WNET Board to vote on Bill Baker’s successor

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The board of WNET in New York will vote this morning to appoint former NBC News President Neal Shapiro as successor to William Baker, president and c.e.o. of the station since 1987, according to the New York Times.

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Sound of Young America gets props

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Comedian Patton Oswalt, who stars on CBS’s King of Queens, told USA Weekend that public radio’s The Sound of Young America ranks among his favorite podcasts. Host Jesse Thorn “knows how to interview comedians and gives them endless opportunities to be funny,” Oswalt said. “That’s a skill.”

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Iowa Public Radio restores On Point

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Complaints from listeners have prompted Iowa Public Radio to restore On Point to its weekday news lineup, reports the Des Moines Register. The network had replaced the talk show from WBUR Jan. 1 with The Diane Rehm Show as part of a schedule overhaul. “This was the only issue that really got a wide response from people,” said Todd Mundt, director of programming.

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For PBS stars, it can be a life’s work

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Bill Moyers, 72, resumes weekly appearances on PBS with a new Friday-night version of Bill Moyers’ Journal in April, he announced at the Television Critics Association press tour on Saturday, the New York Times reported. And Ken Burns will produce for PBS at least until 2022, when he’ll be 68. Critics objected that PBS hurt publicity for Burns’ WWII series by scheduling it amid the commercial networks’ fall premieres in September, the Los Angeles Times said.

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Carlson Sr. comes to Libby’s defense

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Former CPB President Richard Carlson helped raise a $3 million defense fund for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheney who was indicted in the Valerie Plame leak case, CBSNews.com reported. After Libby’s indictment, ex-State Department official Richard Armitage admitted that he was the primary source for columnist Robert Novak’s 2003 column.

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KTOO launches new services

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KTOO in Juneau, Alaska, launched three distinct programming streams Friday, one news and two music, making use of two newly acquired FM signals. “If we underestimated anything, it was how complex running these three radio stations would be in the midst of other technological challenges,” President Bill Legere told the Juneau Empire.

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Half of Peabodys go to pubcast programs

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Programs on public TV and radio received seven of the 14 duPont-Columbia Awards announced Saturday. Winners include Martin Scorsese’s Dylan bio on American Masters; Brook Lapping Productions’ Israel and the Arabs; the WGBH Cape and Island stations’ doc on Cape Cod poverty; Frontline’s The Age of AIDS; Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butteworth’s Seoul Train on Independent Lens; public TV’s California Connected; and NPR’s Iraq coverage.

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Indiana pubradio net buys station

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Northeast Indiana Public Radio in Fort Wayne plans to pay a commercial broadcaster $1.75 million for an FM channel on which it will air classical music, reports the Fort Wayne Daily News. “This will be a place that finally gives a greater voice to the fine arts in Fort Wayne,” said Bruce Haines, g.m.

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Law students organize against satellite radio merger

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As Sirius Satellite Radio flirts with competitor XM Satellite Radio (sending their stock prices rising), a group of George Washington University law students has formed a consumer advocacy group to push for continued consumer choice and oppose monopoly. Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio, or C3SR, will debut at the National Conference on Media Reform this weekend in Memphis.

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NewsHour didn’t show all sides in Iraq panel, FAIR says

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Lefty media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting criticized a recent NewsHour panel discussion of the war in Iraq, saying it included no strong advocates for troop withdrawal. FAIR urged its readers to e-mail NewsHour producers and “encourage the program to broaden future discussions to include such voices.” PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler said he’s received more than 100 e-mails about the matter.

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Study on TV violence prompts warning to broadcasters

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The violence depicted in broadcast networks’ primetime programs is approaching “epidemic proportions,” according to a study issued yesterday by the Parents Television Council. FCC Commissioner Michael Copps, who appeared at the news conference unveiling the study, warned broadcasters to do a better job of policing themselves, lest Congress decides to take action, according to the Los Angeles Times.

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PubTV programmers launch new blog

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Live from Las Vegas! PubTV programmers Keith York and Garry Denny are blogging about their adventures at the International Consumer Electronics Show. The blog, a new service of Public Television Programmers’ Association, aims to help station programmers learn what’s happening at major conferences dealing with media technologies and programming.

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Keillor’s rules for reading the paper

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A traditional newspaper is far more stylish than a laptop, Garrison Keillor writes in this Salon piece. “A man at a laptop is a man at a desk, a stiff, a drone,” he says. “A newspaper reader, by comparison, is a swordsman, a wrangler, a private eye.” Here he outlines rules for reading papers with the proper amount of savoir faire.

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BP backs KCET’s twin series with $15 million

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KCET has received its biggest-ever underwriting grant: $15 million to go national with its twin Peabody-winning parenting/caregiving programs A Place of Our Own and Los Niños en Su Casa. The donors: BP America and the BP Foundation. BP previously donated $10 million to launch the series in California. CPB will give $3.8 million for the national launch and the First 5 California Commission will contribute $6 million. Earlier Current feature on the programs.

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NAB to launch DTV publicity campaign

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APTS will be part of a coalition of broadcasting, retail and social interest groups, led by the National Association of Broadcasters, that is mounting a two-year campaign to educate consumers about the 2009 analog TV shut-off, The Hill reports.

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Open Media Network promotes PC-to-TV downloads

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Open Media Network, the online non-commercial content portal featuring lots of pubcaster programs, is optimizing its video for larger screens, it announced at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. OMN content is viewable at qualities suitable for TV screens via broadband-equipped sets such as HP’s MediaSmart LCD TV, or TiVo DVRs.

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Tomlinson won’t seek BBG renomination

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Kenneth Tomlinson, ousted former chair of the CPB Board, asked President Bush not to renominate him to the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal agency that oversees Voice of America and other international media efforts, the Washington Post reports. Last fall a State Department probe found Tomlinson worked on his horse-racing business from his government office and improperly hired a friend, among other missteps. Despite the allegations, President Bush renominated him to the board in November but few expected the new Democratic majority in Congress to confirm him. Tomlinson, who will serve on the BBG until a replacement is named, is going to write a book about his experiences.

Quick Takes

Getler calls for more aggressive Iraq coverage

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PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler proposes a new year’s resolution for public TV journalists and producers of news and public affairs programs: ratchet up your “determination to challenge, to explore and to cut through spin” in coverage of the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq.