Current (https://current.org/2009/12/page/3/)
Washington Week’s Gwen Ifill chatted with Jon Stewart on The Daily Show last night. One revelation: Pubcasters on her show “are seated hours before we begin, just to have a chance to stare at each other.” Who knew?
CPB has expanded the list of conferences for professional development small-station grants. Staffers at public TV stations receiving nonfed financial support of $2 million or less may attend various conferences in 2010. Want to go to NETA in January? Or the PBS tech conference, or Showcase? There’s a rolling deadline to apply for no more than two $1,500 grants per year for professional development.
Radio Bilingüe has retained Denver-based Paragon Media Strategies to conduct research for its LA Public Media Project, a multiplatform service aimed at young minority listeners in Los Angeles. The contract, announced late yesterday, calls for intensive research to identify the audience and test content for the service, slated to launch next year on a yet-to-be identified radio channel and digital platforms. “For the first time, a national media research firm will be studying this young audience to find out what it wants from a public media service,” said Hugo Morales, executive director of Radio Bilingüe. “Our goal is to work with Paragon to map out the needs and aspirations of this audience and design and test content that resonates with them.” Paragon, helmed by programming consultant Mike Henry, has worked on many public radio start-ups and service expansions, including Radio Milwaukee, The Current in Minneapolis, and, most recently, KXT in Dallas, the Triple-A station launched last month by KERA.
The PBS NewsHour, which relaunched its revamped show and web presence on Dec. 7, is starting a “major new initiative” on YouTube, the Google Blog reports. Its YouTube channel — complete with a welcome from host Jim Lehrer — is running reports from the TV broadcast on the same night the show airs, along with web-original news videos. PBS has had success with YouTube in the past, particularly during last year’s election. Its “Video Your Vote” drew 2,500 viewers posting videos of their Election Day experience.
A House and Senate conference committee has approved a package of six unfinished fiscal 2010 spending bills, including funding for CPB and other pubcasting programs. The $446.8 billion omnibus appropriations bill is expected to pass muster with the House soon, then proceed to the Senate and on to President Barack Obama for his signature. The omnibus gives CPB a $445 million advanced appropriation for FY 2012; $36 million for digital conversion; $25 million for the public radio interconnection system and $27.3 million for Ready To Learn for FY 2010. It also provides $25 million in “fiscal stabilization” grants to pubTV and radio stations. If signed into law, the proposed FY 2012 CPB funding would represent a $15 million, or 3.5 percent, increase over CPB’s FY 2011 levels, and the RTL funding would be $1.9 million, or 7.5 percent, more than FY 2009. In total, the funding represents an increase of $41.7 million, or 8.1 percent, over in last year’s appropriations legislation.
Joaquin Alvarado, senior v.p. of diversity and innovation at CPB since June, has resigned to take a similar position at American Public Media in St. Paul, the corporation announced this afternoon. Alvarado, a leading advocate for broadband expansion, will be senior v.p. of digital innovation at APM, focusing primarily on its Public Insight Journalism project, according to a spokeswoman. APM is the national distribution arm of Minnesota Public Radio. Alvarado will continue to advise the CPB Board’s digital media committee.
Participants at the upcoming “Kids @ Play” include Susan Zelman, education s.v.p. at CPB; Rob Lippincott, education s.v.p at PBS; and Terry Fitzpatrick, e.v.p. of distribution for Sesame Workshop. The session is part of a larger meeting, “Living in Digital Times,” at the January International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Other speakers are as diverse as the “chief information and logistics bear” from the Build-A-Bear Workshop to the under secretary for the U.S. Department of Education. The other summits: Digital Health, Mommy Tech and HigherEd Tech.
NPR Executive Editor Dick Meyer denies any connection between his request that political correspondent Mara Liasson reconsider her appearances on the Fox News channel and the White House’s recent campaign to discredit the cable outlet as a mouthpiece of the Republican Party. “NPR has not had any communication of any kind with the White House regarding the status of any of our reporters or their work for anyone outside of NPR,” Meyer wrote in an email to NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard. “Any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.” The suggestion, put forward yesterday in an anonymously sourced story by Politico, has stirred up the blogosphere and generated 142 emails to NPR in roughly 24 hours, according Shepard.
SesameWorkshop today announced its first eBooks for Sesame Street. Several are now online for free, with more titles available for purchase in spring 2010, the Workshop said in a statement. There’ll also be an annual subscription that provides access to more than 100 books, with new titles added monthly. The eBooks “will help us leverage our library of 40 years worth of traditional print publishing,” said Scott Chambers, the Workshop’s s.v.p. of worldwide media distribution. The Workshop’s top-selling title, The Monster at the End of This Book, is the first eBook (above).
NPR is expanding its mobile offerings with two services unveiled today: a redesigned and expanded NPR Mobile Web service for users of Blackberry and other mobile devices not sold by Apple; and an Android app to be released later this month. NPR Mobile Web now has the look and feel of the NPR News app for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch; its enhancements include new search capabilities, higher-quality audio, and access to the live streams of all NPR stations. “The mobile [web] relaunch allows to us to address the BlackBerry platform,” says Demian Perry, head of NPR mobile operations, in this interview with paidContent. “The BlackBerry has six different operating systems, which is an added complication in terms of creating an app.” The NPR News app for Android will have “backgrounding” capabilities, allowing users to listen to audio while toggling through other applications. The open source design of the Android system allows NPR and its member stations to share and incorporate each other’s programming more easily, Kinsey Wilson, senior v.p. of digital media, tells paidContent.
PBS received two Emmys for Business and Financial Reporting at ceremonies today in New York City. The awards recognize eight categories of programming. Frontline’s “The Madoff Affair” won for outstanding doc on a business topic, and NewsHour won for outstanding coverage of a current business news story in a regularly scheduled newscast, for two segments of its “Faces Behind the Numbers” look at unemployment. Previously announced lifetime achievement Emmys went to retiring Paul Kangas, anchor and financial commentator for Nightly Business Report, and Linda O’Bryan, the show’s founder and current chief content officer at Northern California Public Broadcasting. A list of winners is online at the Emmy website.
Sesame Workshop and Mattel are ending their long marketing relationship in January, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The Workshop has inked a 10-year deal with Hasbro to market toys and games based on Sesame Street characters, beginning next month. The Workshop signaled it wanted to move away from Mattel’s holiday-oriented marketing strategy to Hasbro’s year-round brand development. Hasbro includes the Playskool, Milton Bradley, Tonka and Parker Bros. lines, B&C notes.
KCSM in San Mateo is still struggling despite some $800,000 in cuts — including dropping PBS membership. The Oakland Tribune reports the station needs to hit its $1 million fundraising goal by Jan. 1; so far it has raised $6,000. Marilyn Lawrence, g.m., fears the San Mateo County Community College District may be forced to sell KCSM, which has been on the air since 1964. The 1.5 million watt station broadcasts to San Mateo, San Francisco, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and is carried on 60 cable systems.
Politico is reporting that NPR executives recently asked political correspondent Mara Liasson to reconsider her relationship with Fox News. NPR brass is concerned that the cable news channel’s programming has grown more partisan and regular appearances on Fox by Liasson and NPR news analyst Juan Williams add to the perception that NPR tilts to the left, according to Politico. Liasson declined to sever her ties with Fox. Williams, whose NPR contract gives him wide latitude for outside work, no longer identifies himself as an NPR analyst when appearing on the cable channel. NPR denies that its request for Liasson has anything to do with the White House’s recent campaign to discredit Fox as a shill for the Republican party.
Follow a KCET crew as program guru Bohdan Zachary tags along to the LA Auto Show. Huell Howser’s reporting will be part of the station’s evening of car programming Jan. 14, featuring the doc Who Killed the Electric Car? Howser chatted with GM reps about their electric Chevy Volt, available starting next year.
European pubcasters will assist struggling pubTV and radio networks in Eastern and Southern Europe, the New York Times reports. “There is a real threat of public service broadcasting disappearing in some of these countries,” Claudio Cappon, vice president of the European Broadcasting Union, told the Times. “Every day we are receiving cries for help.” Pubcasters in Hungary, Cyprus and Malta and the former Yugoslavia are facing budget cuts due to the global recession, as well as waning political support. The Broadcasting Union plans to coordinate programming donations to the needy broadcasting systems. Some 500 hours of drama, documentary and children’s shows, normally sold to broadcasters, would be provided free.
The cancellation of Now on PBS is bothering PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler as well as some of his readers. Late last month, news leaked out from PBS that Now and Bill Moyers’ Journal would end next year. PBS confirmed in a statement that the shows would “conclude their weekly series at the end of April 2010,” and details would follow in January. But as Getler writes, “I must say that as a steady viewer of these programs, not just as the ombudsman, I find the one and only PBS public statement thus far about the ending of these programs to be puzzling; unresponsive to dedicated viewers and to the high-profile role for public affairs junkies that these broadcasts have played for years on public television.” John Siceloff, e.p. of Now, told Getler that the show was not ended due to financial difficulties.
David S. Bennahum’s Center for Independent Media is one of the success stories in nonprofit news, reports Allan D. Mutter in his blog, Reflections of a Newsosaur. Since starting the center, which includes an online news network, in 2006, Bennahum has raised more than $11 million from hundreds of individual donors and some four dozen foundations. His advice: Don’t become overly dependent on a single funding source. Don’t concentrate on raising money from journalism-oriented institutions; rather, target funding to support issue-oriented reporting. He’s also focusing on advertising sales, revenue from live events and subscription products aimed at niche readers, perhaps politicians, lobbyists or state contractors.
The new Bernard L. Schwartz Center for Media, Public Policy and Education at Fordham University will research and promote the potential role of public broadcasting in news reporting, the Graduate School of Education announced today. Its work will study the nation’s newsgathering traditions and investigate “solutions for their survival,” a statement said. At the helm is Bill Baker, who was WNET’s president for 20 years. The center is funded by the Bernard and Irene Schwartz Foundation, which supports mainly New York-based educational, medical and cultural institutions.
With all the pubcasting 40th anniversaries this year, we couldn’t let this one pass unnoticed. Yes, for the 40th year, Wisconsin Public Television will offer “Once Upon a Christmas Cheery in the Lab of Shakhashiri,” hosted by University of Wisconsin-Madison chemistry professor Bassam Shakhashiri. Tickets to the taping this weekend were gone within a few days; broadcasts on WPT will be Dec. 21, 24 and 28. The special runs on stations nationwide, so don’t forget those magic words: Check your local listings.