Quick Takes
Edwardson dies; helped create Florida’s WUFT-FM
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Mickie Edwardson, who helped found University of Florida’s pubradio WUFT-FM in 1981, died May 15 at age 80 following complications from an accident, according to the Gainesville Sun. Edwardson began as a producer-director at WUFT-TV soon after its launch in 1958. When the station announced a format change to news in August 2009, she told Current (July 6, 2009) she was concerned for the students. “I’m worried that the new shows won’t provide the educational component that the current programs provide,” said Edwardson, who at the time of her death was a retired journalism professor and still produced opera specials during WUFT pledge drives. “I taught for 38 years in that college, and I think we do a good job of training students.
Quick Takes
Kerger opens Austin meeting with vision for pubmedia, and tale of Hippie Jack
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Tiny WCTE, Upper Cumberland Public TV in Cookeville, Tenn., got a shout-out from PBS President Paula Kerger in her opening remarks at the PBS Annual Meeting in Austin. “It isn’t only the smallest station in Cookeville, it’s the only station,” Kerger said. It’s an area rich in music, culture, character — and characters. During a recent visit Kerger met Hippie Jack, who arrived there to start a commune in the 1960s and never left. Now he works with the station, including pledge shows, and 130 PBS affiliates nationwide carry his “Jammin’ at Hippie Jack’s” music festival.
Audience
Public affairs: What the invisible hand of the news market leaves all too invisible
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People consuming public affairs coverage because of duty or a fascination with policy create a demand for news with context, details, debate, and reason. But those watching public affairs in search of drama create a demand for covering politics as a horse race or morality tale with winners and sinners.
Quick Takes
Detroit PubTV’s Hamilton moves to Michigan day school
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Detroit Public Television senior development veep Kelley Hamilton is moving to the University Liggett School, an independent day school in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., to head up a $10 million endowment campaign, according to Crain’s Detroit Business. While at DPT, she helped the station wrap up a $22 million push last year. Hamilton had been with the station since 1996.
Quick Takes
PTPA meeting under way in Austin
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Pubcasters are streaming into Austin for the big PBS Showcase/Development Extravaganza/Annual Meeting/Networking-a-palooza. First up, PTPA meeting. A Twitter Critter from the latest incarnation of Public Media Digest is currently Tweeting, follow along here. Current will be blogging here Monday evening through Thursday afternoon so check back often.
Quick Takes
WHYY opening $12 million Public Media Commons
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A $12 million capital improvement project is nearly complete at dual-licensee WHYY in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer says. The Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons adds 8,000 square feet to WHYY’s 60,000 square feet of studio and office space. The biggest part is the 4,100-square-foot Lincoln Financial Digital Education Studio, which doubles as a studio and auditorium. Two new media training rooms provide would-be filmmakers with classes in audio, video, digital editing and studio lighting. WHYY President William J. Marrazzo told the paper that a primary goal is to get more station members and community residents — both young and older — into pubcasting via digital production.
Tech
What public stations should consider about upgrading HD Radio power
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Two of NPR’s top technologists recently back from the NAB Show share the microphone to weigh the pros and cons for stations that might boost their digital signals to improve listeners’ reception of HD Radio. Dennis: Digital radio broadcasting is a reality now in most American communities, though adoption is still modest. About 2.5 million receivers have been sold, but assuming multiple receivers for early adopters and counting methodologies, household penetration might be roughly 2 percent — about as many households as in a market the size of Washington. Public radio has aggressively invested in digital radio transmission. Some stations, such as WAMU in Washington, have also made significant programming investments in new channels.
Foundations
Funders buy time for rethinking in WDUQ sale talks
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When Duquesne University declined to accept bids for WDUQ-FM by its staff and supporters, an alliance of Pittsburgh foundations stepped in to put the sale on hold May 4. Adding an unusual time-out to the high-stakes playbook of colleges divesting broadcast properties, the foundations acquired a 60-day option to develop plans recasting the station with a stronger focus on news and information. “The foundations’ goal is to give the community time to put forward the best possible bid” and not to purchase the station, said Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh Foundation. Local foundation leaders want to explore possibilities for a “much more aggressive news and information focus” for WDUQ, he said. “We are trying to gather intelligence on where public media seems to be going and how Pittsburgh could become an example of the very best of the breed.”
The foundations hired Charlie Humphrey, executive director of Pittsburgh Filmmakers and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, to plan a news-focused service and lay the groundwork for a new bid.
Quick Takes
WWOZ mounts Gulf Aid concert
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WWOZ in New Orleans will broadcast live on May 16 from Gulf Aid, a benefit concert to provide financial relief to Gulf Coast fishermen affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Performers scheduled to appear on two different stages at Mardi Gras World River City include Allen Toussaint, Kermit Ruffins, Ani DiFranco, Lenny Kravitz, Soul Rebels Brass Band, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with Mos Def and Terence Blanchard. The concert, a ticketed event that kicks off at noon CT tomorrow, is the brainchild of Susan Nash, a public relations rep who has promoted Louisiania’s seafood industry; WWOZ recruited musicians to the cause and partnered with business sponsors to present the concert and establish the nonprofit Gulf Relief Foundation to process donations and distribute funds to fishermen and wetland recovery efforts. ‘OZ is the first broadcast station to receive an FCC waiver to fundraise for disaster relief related to the spill, according to David Freedman, g.m.
Quick Takes
Indie pubTV channel devotes June to gay programming
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MiND, the recent web-and-broadcast reincarnation of Philadelphia’s pubstation WYBE (Current, April 21, 2008) is devoting the month of June to special programming for and about the local LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, reports the Philadelphia Gay News. Five-minute, viewer-created pieces dominate the indie pubchannel’s format. MiND is soliciting those short video submissions from the gay community for special one-hour shows on June 23 and June 26 on its Channel 35, as well as a presentation June 30 at the Piazza at Schmidt’s, a popular open air plaza in the city. MiND reformatted earlier this year to focus on a different theme each month, such as Earth Day in April and volunteerism in May.
Quick Takes
Go forth and fail — but be sure to share your experience later
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“We don’t celebrate failure and we should,” writes the thought-provoking pubmedia guru Rob Bole in his Public Purpose Media blog. “We always blame a lack of communication of successes, but I am beginning to believe it might be a lack of communication about failures that is the true culprit.”
Quick Takes
Pending Kansas budget may slice pubcasting dollars by more than 50 percent
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More than half of the state public broadcasting grants in Kansas will be gone if Gov. Mark Parkinson signs the 2011 budget just okayed by the legislature, reports the Wichita Eagle. The proposal cuts $900,000 of the $1.6 million in funding. If the governor approves, “2011’s operating budget for most public broadcasting stations in Kansas looks grim,” noted the paper. Especially hard hit would be Smoky Hills Public Television in Bunker Hill, which receives 15 percent of its budget from the state. At High Plains Public Radio in Garden City, a 10 percent cut.
Quick Takes
Proffitt leaves KETC after two months
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Pubcaster/blogger John Proffitt (see item below), who departed Alaska for KETC in March, has left the St. Louis station. He’d worked there as director of digital engagement, “but from the get-go I had several intuitions things weren’t quite right, at least for me.”
Quick Takes
Mobile DTV is DOA, pubcasting blogger opines
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“I have nothing technically against mobile DTV,” writes pubcaster John Proffitt on his Gravity Medium blog. “It’s a significant achievement in that sense. But I can’t see how it makes it big in this mediasphere. The stars are aligned against it. It’s Dead On Arrival.”
Quick Takes
PubTV tops cable, broadcast networks for Daytime Emmy nods
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Public television has 52 Daytime Emmy nominations, more than any other broadcast or cable network. Nominees for the 37th annual honors were announced today by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Perennial fave Sesame Street was the most nominated children’s show with 14 nods, and swept the outstanding performer in a children’s series category. Others with multiple nominations: The Electric Company, eight; Design Squad, four; Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman, three; WordGirl, three; Between the Lions, two; Sid the Science Kid, two; APT’s Avec Eric, two, and Biz Kid$, two.
Quick Takes
That PBS cap must be aerodynamic
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This just in: Photographic evidence of PBS President Paula Kerger with her jaunty PBS hat powering toward the finish line of the Kinetic Sprint triathlon in Spotsylvania, Va., last weekend. Her strongest event was the 18-mile bike ride, in which she finished 41st of 252 women with a time of 1:11:18. Kerger also swam 750 meters and ran 5k. All in one day. In 2:14:38, actually.
Quick Takes
Get out the duct tape, Red Green may be heading your way
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Steve Smith, who plays the title character in The Red Green Show, never expected it to last more than one season. And here it is, Season 15 and still popular on pubcasting stations nationwide, the longest running Canadian program in American TV history. “We did the show just to make ourselves laugh,” he tells the Woodinville Weekly in Washington State. The show’s success “has been a total shock and surprise to us. Even when we stopped doing it five years ago we thought it would just die, but it kept on being renewed.”
Quick Takes
Washington Post’s Shales skewers debut of Need to Know
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Tom Shales, the Washington Post’s vaunted TV columnist, is one of the few (if only) mainstream media writers so far to critique WNET’s new pubaffairs show Need to Know. And to say that he does not care for the show is a huge understatement. Excerpts:– “PBS promises that this dreadful Need to Know show, which supplements vacuous televised drivel with fancily designed Web-page graphics, ’empowers audiences to “tune in” anytime and anywhere.’ Meaning that you are free to supplement inadequate broadcast material with unsatisfying Internet material whenever you inexplicably get the urge. Oh boy, what a boon!”– The show “.
Quick Takes
Summit takes up proposals for pubcasting reform
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A white paper on the future of public media will help shape the discussion at the Free Press Summit, which kicks off at 10 a.m. on May 11 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The paper analyzes several options for financing a trust fund that would increase the field’s funding six-fold and eventually end its reliance on congressional appropriations. It also calls for changes in the system for appointing the board of directors of Corporation for Public Broadcasting and proposes new standards of community service at CPB-funded stations. For a live webcast of the first four hours of the summit, tune your browser here.