Frontline website returns; e.p. Fanning calls hack “disappointing and irresponsible”

Frontline’s website is back up after being hit by hackers over the weekend. The group Lulz Boat claimed responsibility on its Twitter account Sunday night (May 29), mentioning retaliation for Frontline’s recent documentary, “WikiSecrets.” Frontline Executive Producer David Fanning said in a statement on the attack, “We see it as a disappointing and irresponsible act. We have been very open to publishing criticism of the film, and the film itself included multiple points of view. Rather than engaging in that spirit, this is an attempt to chill independent journalism.”

Illinois Public Media continues search for station manager, hires development director

Kate Dobrovolny, former station manager at WILL-AM-FM-TV in Champaign, Ill., who retired in April after 31 years at the station, is spending her summer right where she wants to be: In her garden. Meanwhile, the local News-Gazette reports, Illinois Public Media is conducting a national search for her successor. It’s also hired Debbie Hamlett as director of development to replace George Hauenstein, who left last fall. Hamlett was previously development and programming director at South Carolina ETV. Hamlett starts today (May 31).UPDATE: Current just heard from Hauenstein, who points out he did not retire, as the News-Gazette report states, but instead departed to become chief development officer at Vermont Public Television.

WFUV’s Alternate Side gains drive-time slot on city-owned WNYE

The Alternate Side, an HD Radio channel and online stream programmed by New York contemporary music station WFUV-FM, is expanding its broadcast footprint into morning drive-time. A six-hour music show, co-hosted by Russ Borris and Alisa Ali, will air on WNYE 91.5 FM, beginning June 1 from 6 a.m. to noon.The new programming deal supplants WNYE’s three-year relationship with KEXP in Seattle, which brought simulcasts of KEXP’s John in the Morning to New York’s airwaves in 2008. WNYE is part of NYC Media, owned and operated by the New York City government.The partnership with WFUV “provides the opportunity to improve our radio content and further workforce development in media at the same time,” said Katherine Oliver, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, which oversees the NYC Media group. It also “comes at no cost to the taxpayer,” according to a WFUV’s May 31 announcement.WFUV created and launched The Alternate Side in 2008 as a channel showcasing indie music and new artists. It airs on WFUV’s primary channel as a late-night show — on weeknights from 10 p.m. to midnight.”The Alternate Side is all about finding and supporting new artists,” said Chuck Singleton, WFUV p.d., who led start-up of the service.

Kerger: Aging is all about “testing the boundaries”

PBS President Paula Kerger, 53, is one of several women (including a 74-year-old bodybuilder!) featured in the Washington Post Magazine’s May 29 cover story on women and aging. “So many people believe that when they get to a certain point in their lives, it’s too late to do something new,” she tells the mag. “I believe that testing the boundaries of what you’re capable of is what aging is about.” Training for and competing in triathalons is one way she’s constantly challenging herself “to do something terrifying,” she says.

Chart showing planned rearrangement of the PBS primetime hour

Flow plan would push spots deeper into PBS hours

The traditional pledge-drive mantra brags about a piece of public television’s ancestral DNA: “PBS — your home for quality, uninterrupted programming.”

So the public reacted fairly predictably when PBS announced at this month’s annual meeting in Orlando that it’s considering internal promotional spots as part of its primetime revamp. As one blogger quipped, “Even though it wouldn’t involve actual commercials, I honestly think that Fred Rogers wouldn’t be happy with this idea.”

But some public TV programmers have responded more with curiosity than with outrage. They realize that the PBS schedule loses hundreds of thousands of viewers between shows and has for years. And by clustering compatible programs, as PBS plans to do for the fall, stations can retain more viewers through the station break. The audience isn’t keen on sitting through the present hodgepodge of video snippets between shows: some eight minutes of national and local underwriting spots, promos, program credits, network and station branding and teases.

Ibargüen on PBS break proposal: “It’s too bad”

Reaction continues regarding PBS’s upcoming experiment to interrupt programming four times an hour for underwriting or promotional spots. In a New York Times story Monday (May 31), feedback came from sources including Alberto Ibargüen, a former PBS board chairman and president and chief executive of the Knight Foundation, which finances pubcasting initiatives. “My first reaction is that in any kind of marketing opportunity, if you give up something that is desirable and differentiates you from your competition, it’s too bad, and that’s what this is,” Ibargüen said. However, he noted, “the people of PBS would not do this lightly.” And Jon Abbott, president of producing powerhouse WGBH in Boston, said that “we have a lot of people who care about the work and care about our way of presenting work; that trust, the values that people place in public media are things that we are very attentive to and respectful of.”

PBS web pages hacked; group claims attack in response to “Frontline” on Wikileaks

Hackers attacked the PBS website late Sunday (May 29), posting a story on the PBS NewsHour page that dead rapper Tupac Shakur was “alive and well” and exposing username and password information for various PBS staff and stations, all reportedly in retaliation for a Frontline report on Wikileaks. Online mischief makers Lulz Boat claimed responsibility on its Twitter page around 11 p.m. Sunday. It said in a Tweet that the attack was in response to the Frontline documentary “WikiSecrets,” about the leaking of U.S. government secrets to WikiLeaks, its founder Julian Assange and the alleged leaker, former army intelligence officer Bradley Manning.Teresa Gorman, a NewsHour social media and online production assistant, posted a series of Tweets in response early Monday morning. “Thanks for your concern guys — we are aware there is more than the Tupac story being hacked right now,” she wrote. She also declined further comment to CNN.PBS issued a statement Monday morning: “Last night there was an intrusion to PBS’s servers.

Management of New Jersey TV Network going to WNET/Thirteen in deal this week

New Jersey officials are finalizing a deal to allow WNET/Thirteen in New York City to run the New Jersey Network’s television operation, the Star-Ledger is reporting today (May 29). State treasury officials are expected to announce the agreement this week. Sources tell the paper that WNET will incorporate a new nonprofit in New Jersey to manage the operation, and will work with several programmers, including Caucus Educational Corp., the nonprofit New Jersey production company run by Steve Adubato Jr., to provide local content. WNET will pay nothing to the state for the right to run the station. The state network also is auctioning off rights to purchase and/or run the radio operation.

Massachusetts town one of many forming nonprofits to run cable access channels

Franklin, Mass., is creating a nonprofit to run the town’s public access channels, reports the local Milford Daily News today (May 29). The town’s Cable Advisory Board hopes to increase public involvement, separate the channel from government entanglements and move it to a larger studio. Comcast stopped running the studio as part of the most recent license agreement the town signed last year. The town has since hired two part-time workers. In the past 10 years, Comcast has stopped running many cable access stations it inherited when it purchased AT&T Broadband, leaving towns to figure out how to keep providing those services, the paper notes.

Kansas pubcasters get state funds for next fiscal year, but warning about future

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed a $13.8 billion budget Saturday (May 28) for the fiscal year beginning July 1, which includes $1.5 million in operating grants for public broadcasting stations. However, he also warned pubcasting stations that he intends to target the funding next year. He called on the stations to make what he called appropriate preparations for losing their state funding.

Phil Redo to oversee news and culture for WGBH-FM

The new managing director of news and culture for WGBH-FM/89.7 in Boston is Phil Redo. He’ll guide the overall strategy of the NPR station’s news and cultural programs and oversee WGBH-FM’s editorial partnership with Public Radio International. Redo worked for WGBH as an independent media consultant and was instrumental last year in its purchase of WCRB-FM/99.5, the station said in a release. Redo was formerly vice president and general manager of Greater Media Boston, a five-station FM radio group, and v.p. of operations and strategy at WNYC, New York Public Radio.

Time-shifted radio arrives with DAR.fm

Here’s a tantilizing development: a free TiVo for radio. That’s the promise of DAR.fm (for Digital Audio Recorder), a Web site that lists every single radio show on 1,800 AM and FM stations across the country. The New York Times reports that listeners can “search, sort, slice and dice those listings” by genre, radio station or search phrase, then request the program and “shortly thereafter, an e-mail message lets you know that your freshly baked show is ready for listening.””It lets you time shift, of course, but also presents the entire universe of radio broadcasting in one tidy menu,” it adds. “No longer must you gripe about the creeping commercialism that shut down, say, your town’s NPR affiliate or ’70s reggae station. Suddenly there are 1,800 radio stations in your town — and they program their shows according to your schedule, not theirs.”

Public stations producing live webcasts from Primavera, Sasquatch Music festivals

Public media stations are producing live webcasts from two major music festivals this Memorial Day weekend. New Jersey’s WFMU returns to Barcelona, Spain, for the Primavera Sound Festival, presenting two days of live concerts that began at 3 p.m. ET today with Suicide, the influential protopunk duo. (Listen and chat with other music fans here.) Seattle’s KEXP and NPR Music launch three days of coverage of the Gorge Amphitheatre’s Sasquatch Music Festival tomorrow at 3:25 ET.This is the first time that NPR Music has taken its web listeners to Sasquatch. In addition to KEXP, three radio stations are participating in the festivalcast: KUT in Austin, Texas; Oregon’s OPB Music; and The Current from Minneapolis.WFMU has produced live coverage from Primavera for three years, and offers an archive of festival performances going back to 2009 here.

Supporters cheer as trustees approve new PBS station in Florida

After the University of Central Florida Board of Trustees approved the new WUCF-PBS on Thursday (May 26), “a small crowd at the meeting applauded loudly and cried out in celebration,” according to the Orlando Sentinel. “We see this as an opportunity to step up and serve the community in a new way,” said Grant Heston, UCF’s assistant vice president for news, information and UCFTV. “We look forward to finalizing this with PBS in the coming days.” The university is partnering with Brevard Community College in Cocoa. BCC operates public TV station WBCC, a secondary PBS station.

Two Florida schools strike deal to bring PBS to Orlando via new station, WUCF-PBS

The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees today (May 26) gave its approval to become the PBS licensee for Orlando, the Orlando Business Journal is reporting. WUCF-PBS will launch when current affiliate WMFE-TV stops broadcasting July 1, following its sale to religious broadcaster Daystar. The deal includes a one-time, $1 million cash infusion to the station for HD. Both UCF and BCC already operate their own TV stations and would create content for the channel. UCF will commit $380,000 a year in personnel to the station.

Florida governor eliminates public radio and television funding

Florida public broadcasters are reeling after Republican Gov. Rick Scott vetoed all public radio and television Community Service Grants today (May 26). That’s a loss of nearly $4.8 million in the next fiscal year, WMNF in Tampa reports. The governor kept funding for the Florida Channel, gavel-to-gavel coverage of the legislative sessions and Supreme Court hearings, Janyth Righter, executive director of Florida Public Broadcasting Service, tells Current. “Elimination of state funding will inevitably lead to the loss of programs, services, and jobs in communities across Florida,” the pubcasting group said in a statement, adding that “supporters of local public broadcasting stations across the state are deeply dismayed” at the governor’s decision.

WMFE Board hears opposition to sale

Eight persons showed up at a WMFE Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday night (May 25) to voice concerns about sale of the PBS affiliate’s license to religious broadcaster Daystar. One was former Democratic U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson. “People spoke out against the sale,” Grayson told the Orlando Sentinel in an email. “I told them that they should ask for an FCC hearing on the transfer, and they should solicit competing offers from local groups that want to continue public broadcasting.” Station President Jose Fajardo also told the paper that proceeds from the $3 million sale “will help pay for any money that will need to be reimbursed to state or federal agencies.”

KCET raises more than $70,000 for Japanese disaster relief

KCET in Los Angeles raised $70,495 during its May 24 live televised benefit for Japan, 100 percent of which will go to relief efforts in the regions most affected by the earthquake and tsunami disasters, the station says. L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a special appearance during the three-hour primetime show, which will be rebroadcast locally from 3 to 6 p.m. Saturday. KCET is working with U.S.-Japan Council to disburse funds to NGOs in Japan. Above, from left, KTLA’s Frank Buckley and actress Lily Mariye with Villaraigosa, L.A. Deputy Police Chief Terry Hara, actor George Takei, and U.S.-Japan Council’s Bryan Takeda during the telethon. (Image: KCET)

Sale closes on Palm Beach’s WXEL-FM

Florida’s WXEL-FM, the public radio station that broadcast on 90.7 FM in Palm Beach, has been converted into full-time music outlet WPBI, owned and operated by American Public Media’s Classical South Florida.The FCC approved the $3.85 million license transfer agreement last week, overruling objections from local groups who sought to prevent longtime owner Barry University from splitting the NPR news/classical music station from its public TV sibling. Sale opponents, including the WXEL Community Advisory Board, lobbied unsuccessfully to retain local control of both stations.“This is an exciting day for public radio listeners across South Florida,” said Doug Evans, Classical South Florida president, in a news release announcing that the sale had closed. “We’re excited about the opportunity to serve the Palm Beaches and the Treasure Coast with high-quality public radio programming, and to strengthen the reach and quality of public radio throughout South Florida.Under the sales contract, Classical South Florida has a one-year lease on the Boynton Beach studio facilities that housed both WXEL stations; the WXEL radio staff of seven full-time and four-part-time employees now work for new owner, the Palm Beach Post reports.The future of WXEL-TV, which Barry University has been trying to sell since 2004, is unclear.

“NBR” to air on SiriusXM radio each weeknight

The Nightly Business Report will be broadcast by SiriusXM nationally five nights per week starting May 30, the Miami Herald is reporting today (May 26). SiriusXM will air the personal investment program at 7 p.m. Eastern weeknights on SiriusXM Public Radio (XM channel 121 and Sirius channel 205 with Sirius Premier), and again at 10 p.m.“This is a big first step toward the goal we’ve set for ourselves, which is to build a global distribution for NBR on both television and radio,” Mykalai Kontilai, the former educational video businessman who acquired the show with partner Gary Ferrell from WPBT/PBS 2 nine months ago (Current, Aug. 23, 2010), told the paper. “For the first time, people will be able to tune into the show on radio.”