Quick Takes

TechCon attendees to examine NGIS

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One theme of TechCon 2010, PBS’s annual technical and management confab April 7-9, will be “doing more with less,” PBS’s Chief Technology Officer John McCoskey told TV Technology. Lots to cover in the meeting’s nearly 50 tutorials, sessions and panels, including: automation, multiplatform distribution, quality assurance, file-based workflow and the Next Generation Interconnection System (NGIS). One focus this year is the non-real-time file-based distribution aspects of NGIS. “It’s complex, as we need a ‘one size fits all’ solution. …

Quick Takes

PBCore expands into 2.0 version

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CPB today announced PBCore 2.0, a development project to improve pubcasting’s metadata and cataloging resource since 2005. CPB is working to expand the metadata standard to help producers and distributors better classify and describe digital pubmedia content and assist audiences in finding that content across various platforms (Current, Dec. 17, 2007). PBCore 2.0 will be managed by WGBH, AudioVisual Preservation Solutions and Digital Dawn.

Programs/Content

Hopes of viewers and producers invested in Need to Know

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Ten weeks before the air date of Need to Know, WNET announced the executive producer. Seven weeks before, the producing station named the co-anchors. On May 7 the new public affairs series debuts on PBS. A lot will be riding on the show. For PBS it’s a rare chance to start a potential “icon series” with new styles and substance, demonstrating that folks in “legacy media” can interact and innovate like digital natives.

People

Jim McEachern, 71, NPR’s point man for infrastructure

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Jim McEachern, who was the principal technical leader for the Public Radio Satellite System for its first two decades and was a key planner of NPR’s technical facilities, died March 3 at age 71. He was one of NPR’s first employees in 1971 and worked for the network for 33 years until he retired in 2004. McEachern leaves his wife, Mary E., children Terrance, Elizabeth and Molly, and sister Janet Macidull. The family will hold a celebration of his life Saturday, April, 3, at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Rockville, Md. In lieu of sending flowers, friends may donate to their local public radio stations.

Quick Takes

PBS arts programming disappoints columnist

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In today’s column Terry Teachout, the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic, laments what he terms PBS’s “slow but steady shrinkage of airtime devoted to the fine arts, and the increasing trivialization of such cultural programming as does manage to make it onto the network.” Furthermore, “any TV network that claims to be ‘public’ should be offering more than the ultrasafe programming in which Great Performances specializes.”

Quick Takes

Will do-gooder pubcasters in South Dakota lose state money?

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Now it’s South Dakota pubcasting that may face state funding reductions. The Daily Republic in Mitchell, S.D., reports that Republican state legislator Noel Hamiel suggested this week at a town forum that the state consider pulling back funding to South Dakota Public Broadcasting, which he dubbed one of the capital’s “sacred cows.” He added: “I would like to see public broadcasting wean itself from public funding.” But Democrat Frank Kloucek quickly countered, “I think that sometimes we lose sight of what is for the public good. SDPB does a lot of good for our communities.”

Quick Takes

System needs evolution, not revolution, writes digital strategist Rob Bole

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Public broadcasting thought leader Rob Bole declares himself an evolutionist — at least when it comes to the growth of the pubcasting system into the public media future. In a new post on his personal opinion blog, he writes: “The Rube Goldberg machine of public broadcasting is a strange creature and while it looks painful, for what we have asked of it, it has largely worked. Changing it too rapidly is a bad idea. Leaving it alone is even worse. …

Quick Takes

Newsweek editor, Bryant Park co-host are faces of new PBS Friday-night hour

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WNET confirmed yesterday that Alison Stewart, former cohost of NPR’s Bryant Park Project, and Jon Meacham, editor of Newsweek, will be co-hosts of Need to Know, the new PBS newsmag that begins May 7. The program will fill 60 of the 90 minutes that PBS has allotted to Bill Moyers’ Journal and Now on Friday evenings. Politically progressive fans of the two retiring shows flooded the in-box of PBS ombudsman Michael Getler with most of the past week’s 3,000 e-mails, Getler wrote yesterday. The e-mails seemed to be prompted, Getler said, by an alert from the liberal press watchdog FAIR tarring Meacham as “a consummate purveyor of middle-of-the-road conventional wisdom with a conservative slant,” judged unlikely to do the “hard-hitting” journalism of Now and Moyers. See Current’s March 22 issue for more.

Quick Takes

“Major news initiative” coming from CPB next week

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CPB next Thursday announces a major news initiative to help stations produce more in-depth local journalism. CPB President Pat Harrison will detail the project, joined by the PBS President Paula Kerger and NPR President Vivian Schiller (via live video feed). Following will be a panel discussion on the role of pubmedia in reporting, with Hari Sreenivasan, PBS NewsHour correspondent; Tom Rosenstiel, director of PEW’s Project for Excellence in Journalism; Nishat Kurwa, news director of Youth Media International; Tom Karlo, general manager of KPBS TV-FM; and Kinsey Wilson, NPR’s senior v.p. and general manager of Digital Media. The event will be streamed live from the Newseum in Washington. Public broadcasting has been working to step into the widening news gap as newspaper staffs diminish.

Quick Takes

If it’s March, it’s Muppet Madness time

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This month the bracket brouhaha emerges once again, but forget all that March Madness b-ball boredom. This year, try a little Muppet Madness. It’s brought to you by MuppetCast, the weekly podcast of all things Jim Henson and Muppets. Who will win in Miss Piggy vs. Pepe?

Quick Takes

Mobile DTV superior to broadband, coalition says

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In reaction to the new National Broadband Plan, the Open Mobile Video Coalition told a teleconference of reporters today that mobile DTV is superior to broadband to deliver mobile video, reports TVNewsCheck. Brandon Burgess, CEO of Ion Media and coalition chair, said broadcasting can simultaneously deliver video to millions of viewers without overworking Internet and cellphone networks. “No other solution out there can really do that,” he said. The coalition is made up of more than 800 private and public television stations in America, as well as PBS, CPB and APTS.

Quick Takes

Leading Gen! series garners attention

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The Leading Gen!, currently carried by some 120 PBS affiliates, seems to be on a publicity roll. Last month Daily Variety TV critic Brian Lowry described the 13-part series on aging, introducing readers to neurosurgeon James Ausman and wife Carolyn, producers, and adding that for PBS, ” … catering to those over 50 — the people who are predominantly watching public TV anyway — isn’t just good business; it’s a no-brainer.” Last week the Desert Sun in Palm Springs, Calif., wrote that producing station KVCR-DT in San Bernardino calls it “the ultimate reality show,” and it’s won two Telly Awards. And today, on the wildly popular blog the Daily Beast, gossip columnist Liz Smith talks about it in a piece headlined, “The great untapped 80-something market.”

Quick Takes

California’s KOCE partnering with web news network

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KOCE in Huntington Beach, Calif., is joining the Orange County Local News Network (OCLNN), owned by the for-profit web journalism chain United States Local News Network. OCLNN reporters will file stories for KOCE’s Real Orange news program, and its digital OC Channel. Some KOCE-produced content will also be at OCLNN.com. The two will also work together on local public affairs projects.

Quick Takes

SXSW showcase a “plum gig” for Spoon & a coming out party for NPR Music

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As the South by Southwest Music festival keeps getting bigger and bigger, the potential for bands to break through to commercial success diminish, observes New York Times ArtsBeat blogger Ben Sisario. He points to last night’s opening showcase, sponsored by NPR Music and headlined by Austin’s own Spoon, as a case in point: “It was a plum gig, reflecting not only Spoon’s preeminence but also the emergence of NPR as a major force in independent music. . . .

Quick Takes

Fellowship named in honor of reporter’s sons

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NPR and the Washington Post are offering an unusual joint fellowship honoring two sons of an NPR journalist. The six-month program, split between the two newsrooms, is seeking applicants by April 30 and will begin in the fall [more information]. The Stone & Holt Weeks Fellowship was created in memory of Stone Weeks, 24, and his brother Holt, 20, sons of Linton Weeks, an NPR reporter who formerly wrote for the Post, and Jan Taylor Weeks, an artist and teacher. The young men were both research assistants at Rice University in Houston. They were returning to their parents’ home in the Washington area July 23 when their car was struck by a truck in Virginia.

Quick Takes

A music geek’s guide to pubradio SXSW coverage

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NPR Music’s live coverage of the South by Southwest Music and Media Conference in Austin begins with tonight’s showcase headlined by Spoon, a hometown favorite kicking off their U.S. tour with this SXSW performance. Tune in at 9 p.m. ET to catch the full line-up including Visqueen, the Walkmen, Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, and Broken Bells. Tomorrow at 1:30 pm ET, NPR Music presents a daytime showcase of six acts headlined by the Sleigh Bells. Five public radio stations–The Current, KEXP, KUT, WFUV, and WXPN–are presenting SXSW coverage in partnership with NPR; most plan to broadcast and webcast their own live shows. In fact, this afternoon at 4 Austin’s KUT offers a showcase featuring Nashville rocker Bobby Bare Jr., Jason Collett of Broken Social Scene and Nigerian soul songstress Nneka.

Quick Takes

NewsHour producer herding 2,000 correspondents tonight

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No kicking back with a green beer for PBS NewsHour Producer Linda Scott this St. Patrick’s Day. She’s in charge of organizing tonight’s huge Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in D.C. Some 2,000 guests are expected at the Washington Convention Center for one of the District’s largest soirees. “We’re going to pull out the stops and have a good time,” Scott told the Washington Times. At the head table: Vice President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Republican Sens.

Quick Takes

Pubcasting leaders speak out on National Broadband Plan

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Reactions are in from the G4– CPB, PBS, APTS and NPR — regarding today’s historic National Broadband Plan release. Excerpts:CPB: “In particular, we appreciate the Taskforce’s recognition of public media’s important role in serving our democracy, as well as our role in America’s broadband future. We also appreciate the Taskforce’s recognition that, if public media is to continue to fulfill our statutory responsibility to provide every American with free educational and cultural programming in the digital age, more funding will be necessary. The report presents many interesting opportunities as well as challenges, both for our country and for public media.”PBS: The plan “will make a significant contribution to ensuring a diverse, digital media landscape in which the needs of local communities and, in particular, children are well served. PBS and its stations have substantially expanded the distribution of educational, noncommercial content by transitioning to digital platforms, including free and universal digital television, streaming video on pbs.org and pbskids.org, interactive educational video games, and mobile services.”

Quick Takes

Free airfare, hotel for two attending PBS Annual Meeting

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Congrats to station reps Kelly McCarthy of Vegas PBS and Michelle Dillard of KTXT in Lubbock, Texas, who won goodies for the PBS Annual Meeting May 17-20 in Austin, Texas. McCarthy now has an American Airlines voucher for her flights, and Dillard scored three complimentary nights at the Hilton Austin where the meeting will take place.

Quick Takes

FCC backs pubcasting trust fund in new National Broadband Plan

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The FCC’s National Broadband Plan has arrived (background: Current, Sept. 21, 2009) with its advice to Congress for expanding broadband reach across America. The FCC has posted it in searchable form. It advises that 500 megahertz of spectrum be made available for broadband within 10 years, of which 300 megahertz should be made available for mobile use within five years. The much anticipated pubcasting trust fund is indeed included.