Jones of PBS ponders new media opportunities

Michael Jones, who became COO for PBS in January, comments on the issue of new vs. traditional media in an interview in The New Pittsburgh Courier. “In my mind, the real challenge is how do you deliver the content in terms of relevancy going forward?” he told the paper. “We stream our programming on the Internet, you can download them on YouTube—how much do you put into Internet distribution and stay with linear television?

Confab focuses on new public media platforms

Pubcasting analyst Jessica Clark weighs in on the recent Media in Transition conference, organized by Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. The weekend confab “was rife with examples of how projects and practices are migrating across multiple platforms,” she writes. She adds: “Government support accounts for less than a quarter of the funding for public broadcasting as it is. Rather than being spread even more thinly, these limited funds should be channeled towards creating media platforms and projects that meet both the needs of citizens and the technologies of the moment.”

Smiley’s Prince interview garners attention

Tavis Smiley’s exclusive interview with Prince, the reclusive rock star, generated worldwide press coverage. Prince has revealed, among other things, that he is epileptic. Part one of the show is here, part two is here.

Mexican Sesame Street creates swine flu PSAs

Plaza Sesamo, the Mexican Sesame Street, is partnering with broadcaster Televisa to produce public-service spots on the swine flu, according to Sesame Workshop. Muppets Pancho and Lola join three of the country’s celebrities to appear in the announcements, which instruct children to tell a parent if they feel sick, cover their mouths with a tissue or arm when they sneeze or cough, and wash their hands several times a day. Plaza Sesamo e.p. Ginger Brown was en route to begin a new season of the show when the outbreak began. Instead of filming new episodes, the staff worked on the announcements.

CPB okays funding distribution rules

The CPB board this week approved distribution guidelines for funds that may be received from its supplemental appropriations request to the Office of Management and Budget. APTS asked for $211 million and NPR for $96 million, for a total request of $307 million. Two panels of pubcasters advised CPB on the guidelines. The first included members of CPB, PBS, APTS, the Affinity Group Coalition and the Public Radio Station Resource Group; the second was comprised of station reps from 10 pubTV and radio stations nationwide. All agreed that the goals should be should be: Funds are to be spent in accordance to current CSG policy, funds are to be distributed within 45 days or as quickly as possible, and funds are to be distributed in one payment.

Pop interrupted by porn in Waco

The viewers of KWBU-TV probably weren’t expecting a flash of pornography when they tuned in o the pledge program My Music: ’50s Pop Parade on Sunday night. Five seconds of adult programming appeared on the Waco, Texas, PBS affiliate, around 6:40 p.m. Interim g.m. Clare Paul said the station received about eight calls. The problem could have originated with the local cable company; it’s checking its broadcast logs. Paul told The Waco Tribune: “It absolutely did not come from us.”

WETA, 20 other nonprofits drop from United Way

PubTV station WETA is among 21 mid-Atlantic nonprofits that have dropped out of United Way and instead joined forces with Community 1st, a new fund-raising consortium. The groups cited declining numbers in workplace donations, as well as “lingering distrust,” as The Washington Post reports, of the local United Way. A fraudulent accounting scandal sent the group’s former chief executive to prison in 2004.

Court okays FCC fines on indecent broadcasts, for now at least

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled narrowly in favor of Federal Communications Commission’s penalties for broadcasters airing “fleeting expletives,” but it did not address questions about whether the FCC’s system of policing the airwaves is constitutional. The decision, which backed the $325,000 fines that the FCC began imposing in 2004 for each broadcast of certain “dirty words,” makes it “quite easy to imagine a majority coming together to nullify the FCC’s present policy,” according to this analysis by SCOTUSblog, which follows the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, political instability at the FCC makes it difficult for Beltway insiders to predict how the commission will react to the decision, according to the Washington Post.

Administrative Assistant, WVTF Public Radio, Roanoke, VA

Job duties: Receptionist and Office Assistant. Answering phone calls, reconciliation of information and financial data, records management, scheduling, data collection, inventory, budget management and funds collections. Qualifications: Previous administrative support experience with bookkeeping and math skills; strong computer skills, data entry, mail merges, word processing and Internet navigation. Preferred qualifications: Experience with WordPerfect and Microsoft Windows; excellent interpersonal skills; working with comma-delimited files; familiarity with University forms and procedures. Pay Band 3.

Statewide Fund Development Director, IPBS, Indianapolis, IN

IPBS, Indiana’s state association of public radio and TV broadcasters, seeks a dynamic Statewide Fund Development Director. Working from Indianapolis, this full-time position is responsible for all statewide IPBS fundraising through solicitations and grants, marketing IPBS projects and managing service contracts. The ability to work collaboratively with individual member stations while securing statewide association funding is essential. Five years of successful revenue development experience, preferably in a public broadcasting or similar environment, is required. Interviewed candidates must supply documentation of past, recent success in fundraising and/or grant writing.

Vice President, KERA, Dallas

North Texas Public Broadcasting Inc. (KERA), the Dallas/Fort Worth PBS and NPR affiliate, has an opening for a Vice President-Technology. Oversee design, implementation and maintenance of technology platforms in a top-5 market television and radio station. Responsibilities include systems in broadcast engineering, broadcast operations, IT and production services for TV, radio and digital platforms for North Texas Public Broadcasting, Inc. The VP will manage four direct reports and this position reports to the CFO. Ten years’ experience in technology management in a media environment. Public broadcasting experience is a plus.

It’s all been good for whatshisname since he was rejected by the dump

A wayward, 6-foot stuffed gorilla arrived at WDSE-TV in Duluth, Minn. in time for the annual Kids Club Circus last week. Its former owner tried to leave it at a landfill but the gorilla was turned away (it wasn’t construction debris), and it fell from the truck into the path of a state official’s car. A state trooper somehow sensed WDSE would adopt. The star of Martha Speaks (shown at right with Sgt.

WILL becomes Illinois Public Media

WILL in Urbana, Ill., is changing its name. Effective Monday it will be Illinois Public Media. The name WILL will refer to specific parts of Illinois Public Media, rather than the whole, marketing director Kate Dobrovolny told the local News-Gazette. The “Illinois” in the title helps convey the station’s affiliation with the University of Illinois.

Problems proliferate with pubstation channel placement

Add Sarasota and Charlotte counties in Florida to the growing number of areas where pubTV channels are being moved onto digital tiers that cost more for viewers to watch. The latest station is WUSF in Tampa. Comcast customers in the two affected counties must subscribe to a service that costs three times as much as basic cable, reports the local Herald-Tribune.

Girl’s screams on NPR piece prompt listener objections

NPR ombudsman Alicia C. Shepard writes in her latest column, “What makes NPR’s storytelling so powerful and compelling is the adroit use of sound.” However, those sounds can sometimes be quite disturbing. Shepard reports that several listeners “strongly objected” to an April 7 Morning Edition story that used the screams of a Pakistani girl being flogged by a Taliban commander.

How about $2 billion for NewsHour?

Alex Jones wants one or more of the world’s richest people to establish a $2 billion endowment that would provide permanent funding for PBS’s NewsHour, reveals journo David Westphal, blogging on the Annenberg School for Communication site. Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, floats the idea in his upcoming book, Losing the News: The Uncertain Future of the News That Feeds Democracy. Regarding NewsHour, Jones writes: “If Warren Buffett or a group of billionaires wanted to change the world, this is how they could do it. It’d be one hour of prime viewing time for every television in the country. It would give the United States the genuinely high-quality TV news operation that it has never had.”

Save WCAL group commits to appeal MPR’s legal victory

Four years after classical station WCAL left the air in the Twin Cities region, its fans have committed to raise the legal costs and appeal their case to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. Save WCAL filed a brief yesterday asking the appellate court to undo St. Olaf College’s sale of the station to Minnesota Public Radio, which now uses the frequency for its contemporary music service, The Current. The WCAL group, represented by attorney Michael McNabb, has had mixed results so far with its claim that the college ignored the intent of donors who kept WCAL going for 80 years. The case won some favorable comments from retiring Judge Gerald Wolf but lost in February with Judge Bernard Borene’s summary judgment upholding the legality of the sale.

NPR cuts another 13 jobs

NPR announced today another 13 layoffs, part of cost-cutting measures to close an $8 million budget gap this fiscal year. Two were senior positions, while another was a news management job eliminated in March, says Dana Davis Rehm, senior v.p. of marketing, communications and external relations. The remaining positions were in the communications, legal, and IT divisions. All of the positions were nonunion jobs. The cuts will save NPR $700,000 this year and come after an additional 64 jobs were eliminated in December.