Programs/Content

Why & How: ‘Unnatural Causes’

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In this Q&A, content creators talk with Current about why they decided to pursue a project and how they produced it. What: Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, a four-hour PBS series that the network scheduled for four Thursday nights on public TV starting March 27. Who made: Larry Adelman, series creator and executive producer, co-director of California Newsreel. Production companies: California Newsreel with Vital Pictures. Presenters: the CPB-funded National Minority Consortia.

Quick Takes

Salt Lake’s KCPW has a shot at keeping its license

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The financially pinched owner of Salt Lake City news station KCPW-AM/FM has signed a letter of intent to sell its two FM licenses to a new nonprofit started by the station’s g.m., Ed Sweeney, the station reported today. If Wasatch Public Media, the new nonprofit, can’t fulfill its bargain, however, the station will be sold to a big religious broadcaster, EMF Broadcasting. Wasatch agreed to pay $2.4 million. The AM channel will go to another religious broadcaster, IHR Educational Broadcasting, for $1.3 million. The seller, based at KPCW in nearby Park City, is taking a loss on the AM station; it spent $2.5 million to buy and build it.

Quick Takes

Viewer reaction to “Bush’s War” is mixed

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In his PBS ombudsman column, Michael Getler features nearly 30 of the letters he received about Frontline’s two-part Iraq war retrospective, “Bush’s War.” One Alaska viewer writes, “Thank you for running the story about Bush’s war. I serve in the U.S. Army. I will be starting my third tour in a month.” But about half the letters are critical of the program for being either one-sided or not in-depth enough.

Quick Takes

Asteroid named for could-be radio star

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Boston blogger, podcaster, magician, street juggler and skeptic Rebecca Watson — one of the six finalists in the Public Radio Talent Quest, awaiting a CPB funding decision on a program pilot — now has an asteroid named after her. The rock, 2.7 miles across and orbiting between Jupiter and Mars, was officially named by the International Astronomical Union on March 21. Jeff Medkeff was entitled to name asteroid No. 153289 for Watson because he co-discovered it in 2001. “Rebecca really deserves this honor.

Quick Takes

New PBS series: reality archaeology

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PBS and Oregon Public Broadcasting have announced a new primetime series, working title Time Team, USA, to air in 2009 or 2010. Based on the UK’s Channel 4 series, the show follows a group of archaeologists who have 72 hours to unearth artifacts and other info from a dig site. Possible locations include the Indian Mounds of Mississippi and the earth pyramids near St. Louis, Mo. Producers from the UK series will team up with OPB, which produced History Detectives for PBS.

Quick Takes

“Why traditional TV production is dead”

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As TV viewing options explode and money for program production dries up, “small and midsize public television stations (not the rich behemoths like WGBH) that want to produce original programs of public value” have two paths to tread, writes Alaska Public Media’s John Proffitt in his blog Gravity Medium. Big productions will be few, will “mostly involve outside contractors rather than inside employees, and will draw most of their funding from external one-off granting sources.” Small, local productions will have to scale back to “one person + camera + laptop” and “must be aimed at multiplatform niche distribution rather than mass entertainment. In the end, ‘TV’ folks will either become multifunctional ‘video’ folks” or will leave to work at specialty video houses. Proffitt features YouTube video of producer Michael Rosenblum lecturing about TV’s changing economics.

Quick Takes

Music discovery sites serving up a lot of what’s already on the radio

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Washington Post radio columnist Marc Fisher surveys the landscape of user-customized online music providers and finds that those proposing songs based on listener preferences aren’t generating “exotic and creative” playlists. On the most popular sites, “the lists of most popular songs are almost indistinguishable from what’s on most pop or hip-hop radio stations,” he writes.

Quick Takes

Justice Dep’t okays XM-Sirius merger

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Citing the growth of digital audio choices for radio listeners, the Justice Department yesterday approved the proposed merger of the XM and Sirius satellite radio companies. The Washington Post and New York Times report on reactions from opponents to the merger, and what may happen when the FCC takes up the proposal. On Hear 2.0 radio researcher Mark Ramsey describes why the merger will have minimal consequences for the radio industry.

Programs/Content

Stern’s latest credit: completing the search for NPR’s future home

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In 2012, when NPR moves to its recently acquired headquarters site seven blocks east of its present home, it will have much more room for growth than it had after its last move, with as much as four times the floor space. In 1994, when the network moved into its present home, 635 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., it had about 400 employees. The building, with less than 150,000 square feet, could accommodate just 480, NPR said at the time. The space was soon outgrown.

People

Stern lost support in his tryout as No. 1 at NPR

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There was no single reason why the NPR Board ended Ken Stern’s 18-month run as chief executive officer — or at least none that any participant in the decision would describe publicly after Stern’s abrupt exit March 6 [2008].

System/Policy

Stern’s latest credit: completing the search for NPR’s future home

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In 2012, when NPR moves to its recently acquired headquarters site seven blocks east of its present home, it will have much more room for growth than it had after its last move, with as much as four times the floor space. In 1994, when the network moved into its present home, 635 Massachusetts Ave. N.W., it had about 400 employees. The building, with less than 150,000 square feet, could accommodate just 480, NPR said at the time. The space was soon outgrown.

People

Stern lost support in his tryout as No. 1 at NPR

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There was no single reason why the NPR Board ended Ken Stern’s 18-month run as chief executive officer — or at least none that any participant in the decision would describe publicly after Stern’s abrupt exit March 6 [2008]. Judging from what board members, station execs and other observers are willing to say, it came down to a lack of confidence in Stern’s ability to lead the organization in directions that public radio’s various stakeholders — especially NPR stations — could embrace. “I can’t comment on the nature of that decision,” said Dennis Haarsager, a longtime station leader now serving as interim c.e.o., “except to say that it was more forward-looking as opposed to backward. No malfeasance should be imputed from this.”

Indeed, Stern’s fans and critics alike say he contributed significantly to strengthening NPR’s financial standing and positioning it as a news organization capable of global coverage. Stern did not respond to Current’s interview request through NPR’s spokesperson.

Quick Takes

Viewers unimpressed with Newshour’s Obama interview

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In letters to PBS ombudsman Michael Getler (scroll down), a handful of viewers accused Gwen Ifill of being soft on Barack Obama during a Newshour interview on Monday. Getler agrees the interview was “somewhat disappointing,” but he doesn’t blame it entirely on the interviewer. “I don’t know if Ifill could have extracted more from Obama or not,” he writes, “because he seemed subdued in his responses.”

Quick Takes

Miami schools to consider selling WLRN-FM/TV

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Facing a $200 million budget shortfall, the Miami-Dade public school system will consider selling part or all of its WLRN-FM/TV duo, schools Supt. Rudy Crew told the Miami Herald editorial board. The stations are on reserved channels, the newspaper reported, so they could be sold only for noncommercial use.

Quick Takes

City Paper on Steiner: egos, money and clashing philosopies

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In another story about the firing of WYPR’s Marc Steiner, The Baltimore City Paper reports that President Anthony Brandon’s “answers–and his nonanswers–during an hour of questions on March 13 suggest displeasure with not just Steiner’s personality but also his unusual employment contract.” Brandon says, “Marc was under contract for $125,000 per year to produce eight hours of programming a week. He was also given the latitude to operate other business ventures at the same time.” Since Steiner stepped down as station v.p. in 2005, his paycheck has been written out to a company Steiner founded in 1998, Lasko Round Inc., reports the paper. “They wanted to get rid of me as v.p., so they had to give me the contract I wanted,” says Steiner.

Quick Takes

To be fiscally prudent, WNIT drops analog early

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WNIT, the pubTV station in South Bend, Ind., has discontinued analog broadcasting after its two major signal amplifiers failed, writes General Manager Mary Pruess in the South Bend Tribune today. If the expensive repairs wouldn’t be obsolete within a year, when the FCC mandates the final analog sign-off, WNIT would do them immediately, she writes. WNIT offers a phone hotline and webpage for info about over-the-air viewers’ options. In Tennessee, where cable carriage is limited, Cookeville’s WCTE rented expensive equipment rather than turn off its analog signal this winter.

Quick Takes

PBS kids games service launches today

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PBS Kids Play!, an Internet-based subscription educational gaming service for kids ages 3 to 6, officially launches today. The curriculum-based service, which has been in beta test for two months, features PBS Kids characters including Curious George and the Berenstain Bears. It costs $9.95 a month, or $79 a year, and includes a free 15-day trial.

Quick Takes

Challenge to FCC indecency rules gets Supreme Court hearing

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The Washington Post reports on the Supreme Court’s announcement yesterday that it will take up the Fox Broadcasting lawsuit challenging FCC policy on indecent broadcasts. The case focuses on the commission’s 2004 decision to fine broadcasters for “fleeting” use of expletives.