Quick Takes

Report follows up on CPB, library efforts

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The current issue of Library Journal highlights a June report, Partnership for a Nation of Learners: Joining Forces, Creating Value (PDF), that details work between the Institute of Museum Library Services and CPB promoting community collaborations. Among the projects cited is an effort in Iowa to improve reading skills among Hispanic parents. Partners were Iowa Public Television, the State Library of Iowa and the Iowa Department of Education.

Quick Takes

Mister Rogers freshens up web-hood

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Call it Fred 2.0 or Mister Rogers’ cyber-neighborhood: The much loved pubcasting kids show has a new web site, reports The Boston Globe. “Although some of the content is decades old, the look of the site is radiant and fresh with bright primary colors, ” the paper notes. Cathy Droz of Rogers’ Family Communications production company says, “It’s reintroducing Fred.” One video clip: Rogers testifying before the Senate in 1968 to try for more funding for his show and other PBS programs.

Quick Takes

KPBS adding a position, changing two others

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Dual-licensee KPBS in San Diego is looking for its first director of news. Also, Keith York, head programmer for 12 years, is moving to oversee corporate fundraising. And John Decker, director of radio programming, will add television to his duties. That’s all part of a wide-ranging reorganization as the station also increases its focus on news and works to spend less on top-level executive salaries, according to the Voice of San Diego website. Spending on new media also will grow by 15 percent to $1.05 million.

Quick Takes

Eight pubstations drop from Time Warner lineups in two states

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Time Warner Cable is dropping eight of 22 public TV channels in Ohio and Kentucky. Gone are two pubTV stations from basic cable and six from its digital service, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer: WCVN in Covington, Ky.; WPTD (Think TV 16) in Dayton; the Kids channel from Cincinnati’s CET; WPTO (Think TV 14) in high def, and digital multicast channels. Time Warner is replacing one with the Home Shopping Network. The company says it is making the changes to prevent duplicate programming.

Quick Takes

Huell Howser, indie producer extraordinaire

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Indie producer Huell Howser, who’s been associated with KCET for nearly 25 years, “is a kind of natural wonder,” writes LA Times TV critic Robert Lloyd, “practically the last living representative of local television in Los Angeles, and for all I know, in America … ” Howser has seven series now in production, including California’s Gold, California’s Green, Downtown, Road Trip and Visiting, carried by many of the state’s PBS affiliates. “I don’t have an agent,” Howser, 58, told Lloyd. “I don’t have a manager, I don’t have a press agent, I don’t have a wardrobe guy, a makeup guy, a parking space, a dressing room. It’s basically me and a cameraman and an editor and a couple of guys in the office.

Quick Takes

Pierson plans her NFCB retirement for January

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Carol Pierson, president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters, told member stations this week that she’ll retire in January after 13 years in the job. In that time, the Oakland-based group has grown from less than 100 to nearly 150 member stations, developed the affiliated group Native Public Media, which is working with 30-some Native American groups with construction permits for new pubradio stations, and with the fledgling Latino Public Radio Consortium. Pierson, who will be 65, says she plans to spend some time visiting with her daughter and granddaughter in England and her sister in Spain. NFCB will advertise for a successor next week (on this site at current.org/jobs), with an application deadline of Sept. 11.

Quick Takes

Raz gets green light as weekend ATC host

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Guy Raz, best known for covering the wartime Pentagon for NPR, is graduating to official weekend host of All Things Considered. He had guest-hosted for several months, kicking off a Three-Minute Fiction contest that has so far received 5,000 listener entries. Joining NPR in 1997 [bio], he served as an ATC intern and as an aide to Daniel Schorr. He reported for the network from more than 40 countries, becoming bureau chief in Berlin in 2000 and in London in 2003. Raz then reported for CNN for two years, serving as its Jerusalem correspondent.

Quick Takes

Erie’s WQLN scores Canadian cable victory

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WQLN-TV in Erie, Pa., will continue to broadcast into London, Ontario, in an agreement reached late Tuesday with Canada’s Rogers Cable, according to the Erie Times News. Rogers originally had decided to replace WQLN-TV with Detroit Public Television for that area. WQLN protests as it receives about $200,000 in annual pledges from the London vicinity. But another problem looms for the station. Dwight Miller, g.m., told the paper that WQLN may still eventually close or cut staff if it receives less than the $250,000 in proposed state funding.

Quick Takes

Minority media-makers in Boston!

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Considering a career or freelancing in public broadcasting? The Asian American Journalists Association will hold a one-hour public panel Friday, Aug. 14 at WGBH during the AAJA’s annual convention in Boston. More in Opportunities.