Quick Takes

PBS and NPR regulars make it to the Hollywood Bowl

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Ari Shapiro, NPR justice correspondent for four years, and Emilio Delgado, who’s been “Luis” on Sesame Street for 38, were guest singers with Thomas Lauderdale’s retro mini-orchestra Pink Martini at the Hollywood Bowl Sept. 19. Delgado performed “Sing a Song,” the Carpenters hit by Sesame Street songwriter Joe Raposo, with the band’s vocalist China Forbes (a duet captured in this video recorded at KCRW). And Shapiro’s global singing debut (here on YouTube) is a suaaaave interpretation of what he calls “a big-band swing number.” In an interview with Alex Cohen on L.A.’s KPCC, Shapiro, who sang in college, tells how he fell in with this band. Note to booking agents: Go for a duet with Shapiro and fellow legal reporter Nina Totenberg, soprano.

Quick Takes

On the Boss’ 60th, WXPN pays tribute morning & night

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Philadelphia’s WXPN celebrates Bruce Springsteen’s 60th birthday today with special programming and a tribute concert originating from World Cafe Live, its partner performance venue. Beginning at 10 a.m., Helen Leicht hosts four hours of wall-to-wall Springsteen, and she’s taking requests for Bruce classics and covers here. Leicht also hosts tonight’s event, The Boss’ Birthday Bash, which will feature the Phill-E Street Band performing Springsteen’s seminal 1975 release Born to Run cover to cover. The concert will be broadcast and webcast live from 7:30-10. And for those Bruce fans who just can’t get enough, WXPN has produced a webstream of Springsteen songs covered by Local XPN Artists.

Quick Takes

WGBH sues over “Famous ‘Roadshow’ Tour”

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WGBH is suing a North Carolina antiques and collectibles trader for its use of the phrase “The Famous ‘Roadshow’ Tour” to promote its events in the Northeast, according to The Boston Herald. The trademark infringement lawsuit accuses WeBuyTreasure.com of damaging WGBH’s reputation by using what it considers deceptive newspaper ads. It was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston Friday.

Quick Takes

Was there a *#$!*% word on Georgia Public Broadcasting?

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Viewers are still talking about Saturday night’s Georgia Music Hall of Fame Awards on Georgia Public Broadcasting: F-word or not? A posthumous tribute to inductee Shakir Stewart of Def Jam was given by members of his family. But as the segment ended, a woman in the groupwas heard yelling as the mics were still open, “Get the [expletive] off me! Don’t touch me!” The Peach Buzz blog in Atlanta said there’s been no explanation for what caused the ruckus, or even confirmation of what exactly was said.

Quick Takes

Once again, PBS dominates news/doc Emmys

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PBS scored the most statuettes of any network at the 30th Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards last night in New York. It’s the ninth consecutive year the network has won the most awards. The six went to Frontline, with two; POV (team pictured), NOVA, Bill Moyers Journal and National Geographic’s “Illicit: The Dark Trade.” PBS had 38 nominations, also more than any other broadcast or cable network. A full list of the news and doc winners is at the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences site.

Quick Takes

PubTV’s classroom side develops in parallel with general-audience side

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The Ford Foundation has finalized its $1 million grant to the PBS Foundation for the PBS Digital Learning Library (formerly known as EDCAR). The network revealed the grant to attendees at Showcase in May. The money will help create the online repository of pubcasting-created educational content for K-12 teachers and students, such as video, audio, images, games and interactive learning activities designed specifically for classroom use, flowing to teachers through local stations. CPB also will provide content grants to PBS member stations.

Quick Takes

Purchase of classical WCRB opens door for WGBH-FM to go all-news against WBUR

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Another commercial classical station will join the pubcasting fold under a deal announced yesterday by WGBH. The Boston pubcaster is acquiring WCRB-FM, a 27,000-watt station that draws a weekly audience of some 340,000 listeners, from Nassau Broadcasting Partners of New Jersey.The purchase allows WGBH-FM to shift its music programming to a new channel and go all-news in direct competition with Boston NPR News powerhouse WBUR, the Boston Globe reports this morning. “This lets us save classical music and look at opportunities to expand our journalism and give folks in Boston more of the public radio journalism that they love,’’ WGBH President Jon Abbott tells the Globe. “This will lead us to build out and continue to enhance news’’ offerings.WGBH, which has been cutting its budget by laying off staff and imposing furloughs and pay cuts, will finance the purchase through a special capital campaign.

Quick Takes

StoryCorps wants Latino histories

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StoryCorps on NPR, which has archived oral histories from more than 50,000 participants, is kicking off StoryCorps Historias in a Washington, D.C., event Thursday. StoryCorps calls it “a groundbreaking initiative to record and preserve the stories of Latinos across the United States” (Current, Dec. 22, 2008). Partners in the national project include the Latino Public Radio Consortium, Latino USA and the U.S. Latino and Latina World War II Oral History Project. Members of Congress, CPB President Pat Harrison and StoryCorps founder Dave Isay will be on hand for the announcement, at the United States Botanic Garden next to the Capitol.

Quick Takes

KBDI developing investigative news project

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Wick Rowland, CEO of KBDI in Denver and dean of the Colorado University-Boulder School of Journalism, has announced that Colorado Public Television will create an investigative news website and pubTV show, according to the Temple Talk journalism blog from John Temple, former publisher of the now-defunct Rocky Mountain News. The project will have a staff of 12; it’s currently partially funded. Heading up the effort will be former Rocky Mountain News reporter Ann Imse. KBDI will provide about a quarter of the $2.2 million budget, including air time, the website, libel insurance and administrative costs. The group is hoping to raise $400,000 to get begin work.

Quick Takes

Keillor’s economic impact far-reaching

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Alarm bells went off in Minnesota when Prairie Home Companion talker Garrison Keillor mentioned to Minneapolis’s Star Tribune last week that he might give up host duties and become producer for a “successor show.” The newspaper is examining “the ripple effects” that it says “would be enormous” for state businesses if that happened — even at the state fair, where Keillor appearances routinely draw 7,000 to 11,000 fans. Keillor’s mild stroke on Sept. 7 and four-day hospital stay has him pondering his future.

Quick Takes

As a sponsor faces lawsuit over lending practices, Smiley ends relationship

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After being drawn into a scandal over alleged predatory loan practices of Wells Fargo, talk show host Tavis Smiley has cut all ties to the financial company.Smiley, who hosts shows on both PBS and Public Radio International, began working with Wells Fargo in 2005 as a speaker at wealth-building seminars for African Americans. A lawsuit recently filed by Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan charges that these seminars were marketing schemes to peddle subprime mortgages to minorities and “part of the bank’s overall illegal and discriminatory practice of steering black and Hispanic borrowers into riskier and more expensive loans,” according to the Washington Independent.“Basically we were just speakers for hire,” said Kelvin Boston, host of the American Public Television series Moneywise, who also appeared at the seminars. “We didn’t have any role or any control over what else happened. The main point is that we were not involved in any of their discussions or in anything they sold.””I cut everything off with Wells Fargo,” Smiley told journalism blogger Richard Prince [scroll down here], as the Independent’s story began circulating on the blogosphere last week. The move cost “a lot of money,” Smiley added, but he didn’t know how much.

Quick Takes

And the most Emmys go to: Little Dorrit!

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Little Dorrit, the BBC/PBS/WGBH Dickens adaptation considered an Emmy underdog, actually walked away with seven statuettes: Best miniseries, directing, writing, art direction, casting, cinematography and costumes. The stunning victory for the Masterpiece miniseries even bested such powerhouses as Mad Men and 30 Rock. Here’s a clip of just one of the acceptance speeches, and a list of all the winners. Other pubcasting winners: American Masters for original main title theme music, and Great Performances for nonfiction series. UPDATE: PBS’s Joe Miller, senior associate of primetime publicity and awards, tells Current the network will be re-posting the miniseries on the PBS Video site on Thursday, and refeeding it to stations sometime this week.

Programs/Content

New CPB chair sees watershed for public media

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Maybe we’re at a 1967 moment again,” says Ernest Wilson III, shortly after his election as chair of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Sept. 16 [2009]. He’s making a hopeful comparison with the year when a Carnegie Commission report slid into President Johnson’s in-box in January and  returned for his signature as the Public Broadcasting Act in November. Wilson, who is dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, admires the way the stars are aligning for an advance of federal policy on public media:

Foundations are examining the plight of journalism and reengaging with public media. Congressional leaders are supportive.

Programs/Content

Online symphony, 2 consecutive movements max

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Stations that stream all four movements of the entire symphony could be seen as violating the law’s detailed rules — the “performance complement”—and risking the statutory license for streaming given them by Congress.

Tech

Access goals hitch ride at light speed

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Pubcasters joined more than 2,000 first-round applicants racing to pitch their broadband dreams for funding from the telecom piece of the government’s stimulus outlay.

They’re volunteering for the Obama administration’s push to extend broadband access to unserved and underserved communities. Among bids from pubcasters:

PBS seeks $8.7 million for a Broadband Communities initiative to expand its Digital Learning Library for schools, encourage public use of its video portal and establish broadband education outreach.

Florida Public Broadcasting requests $22.8 million for a statewide high-speed HELPS (Health, Education, Local, Public Safety) Network.

The National Black Programming Consortium put in for $11.5 million to build on the media skills training of its Public Media Corps.

System/Policy

‘Sloppiness,’ not wrongdoing, led to probe, says WNET chair

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The leadership of WNET said a federal investigation into the station’s use of federal grants totaling almost $13 million is wrapping up, and the organization is financially sound. “There was sloppiness as opposed to real wrongdoing in terms of our accounting systems, which has been addressed,” said James Tisch, chairman of the WNET Board, in an interview.

Quick Takes

A growing Ken Burns’ backlash?

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With the PBS premiere of Ken Burns’ much anticipated National Parks: America’s Best Idea quickly approaching, The Los Angeles Times is examining the filmmaker, his approach and his subject matter. “Though he’s generally respected by critics and scholars,” the paper said, “a backlash has been building, dismissing him as middlebrow, charging that he’s repeating himself, that he’s too earnest, too dark or naively patriotic.” As Tim Page of The Washington Post wrote of Burns’ 2001 film Jazz, in which Burns presented the improvisational music as a mirror of American culture, “This sort of unreflected populist Hallmark-ese seems a strange mixture of New Deal and New Age, and I don’t believe it for a moment.”

Quick Takes

Special ALMA award goes to Latino Public Broadcasting

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Latino Public Broadcasting has received a 2009 National Council of La Raza ALMA Special Achievement Award for its body of work for the year starting June 2008 in the development, support, and promotions of Latino-themed documentaries on public television. LPB Chairman Edward James Olmos and Managing Director Luis Ortiz accepted the honor during the ALMA pre-show on Thursday. The ALMA Awards show with hosts Eva Longoria Parker and George Lopez airs at 8 tonight on ABC.

Quick Takes

Liza coming to public television

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Liza Minelli’s Las Vegas show “Liza’s at the Palace” will be shot for distribution by American Public Television, Playbill reports. The Tony-winning production will be available to stations in November, then released on home video in 2010.