Quick Takes

FCC approves rules proposal on low-power FM stations

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The Federal Communications Commission is getting closer to creating new low-power FM stations and approving rebroadcasting programming from other stations, according to the Blog of the Legal Times. With a 4-0 vote Tuesday (July 12), the FCC “breaks a longstanding logjam on spectrum,” said chairman Julius Genachowski. The problems have been ongoing since 2000, when Congress put low-power radio in urban areas on hold after commercial broadcasters complained about interference.In Tuesday’s Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (PDF), the FCC approved lifting a freeze on processing translator applications and resuming licensing of translator stations in most smaller and rural markets. In urban markets, applicants must re-file. The commission also proposed moving ahead with applications for new low-power licenses within a year.The Prometheus Radio Project, which advocates for low-power radio, praised the vote in a statement.

Quick Takes

Telluride’s KOTO could begin accepting underwriting

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KOTO, broadcasting to Telluride, Colo., and surrounding environs from its purple house on Pine Street, is really feeling a financial pinch — particularly because it’s one of only six pubradio stations in the country that does not accept underwriting. Its news staff was recently pared to just one reporter, and its executive director got a salary cut; other pay and benefit reductions could follow. So the station soon will survey its members to ask if online or on-air underwriting would be acceptable, reports the Telluride Daily Planet. KOTO’s support from CPB has dwindled from $170,000 three years ago to less than $92,000 this year. That makes its traditional summer fundraising efforts — “special events such as the potato black bean sauté,” the paper says — more important than ever.

Quick Takes

Ramer makes Hollywood Reporter’s Power Lawyers list

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Bruce Ramer, board chairman for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, has been selected by the Hollywood Reporter as one of its Power Lawyers for 2011. Gang Tyre Ramer & Brown “is one of Hollywood’s top talent boutiques,” the paper says, and Ramer’s longtime clients include Steven Spielberg and Clint Eastwood.

Quick Takes

Mississippi Public Broadcasting selects newspaper editor as new director

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Ronnie Agnew, executive editor of the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., for nearly a decade, is the new head of Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the newspaper reports. MPB’s former executive director, Judith Lewis, resigned last September after her controversial decision to discontinue Fresh Air (Current, July 26, 2010). Agnew was selected as the 50th recipient of the Samuel Talbert Silver Em Award, the University of Mississippi’s highest journalism honor. He serves as a member of the American Society of News Editors’ board of directors and chairs its diversity committee. Agnew has worked at Gannett newspapers in Hattiesburg and Cincinnati as well as Jackson for most of the past 20 years.

Programs/Content

Puerto Rican station drops PBS shows

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Puerto Rico’s government-controlled WIPR dropped its PBS membership on July 1 — the fourth member station to quit this year. Puerto Rico TV, which produces and broadcasts mostly in Spanish, carried only the English versions of PBS Kids programs. A separate station — Sistema TV (WMTJ), licensed to the private Ana G. Méndez University System — carries a selection of general audience PBS programs.

PBS lost WIPR fees amounting to $713,000 a year. The network earlier lost KCET in Los Angeles on Jan. 1 and two Florida stations as of July 1:  Orlando’s WMFE-TV, and Daytona’s WDSC-TV, which shared their service area with a third station, which continues as a PBS outlet. Pedro Rua, WIPR’s executive v.p., said WIPR and PBS negotiated for about a year but could not reach an agreement that would retain the station as a member.

Quick Takes

David Axelrod calls Juan Williams’ new book “well worth reading”

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Former NPR news analyst Juan Williams’ book hits stores next week. Muzzled: The Assault on Honest Debate chronicles the months after he said on Fox News that he felt uneasy with airline passengers wearing traditional Muslim garb. NPR fired him, which riled conservatives and triggered a firestorm on Cap Hill during important pubcasting funding hearings. The Atlantic notes that David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, is quoted in a blurb on the book’s cover: “For any American who fears the coarsening of our political debate has become an impediment to our progress as a people — and, more importantly, is wondering how to fix it — Juan Williams has written a book well worth reading.” Publication date: July 26.

Quick Takes

PBS SoCal breaks ground for new production headquarters in Costa Mesa

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PBS SoCal, the primary network affiliate in Los Angeles since the departure of KCET in January, broke ground July 7 on a digital media production studio headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif. Station President Mel Rogers did the ceremonial honors, with the help of city officials, board representatives, major donors and PBS star Clifford the Big Red Dog. Rogers also unveiled a $14 million Education and Community through Media initiative that he said will “build a solid platform for PBS SoCal’s future.”The initiative calls on the private sector to help the station establish education, production, communications and sponsorship sales branch offices in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Palm Springs; create a PBS SoCal “One Community” mobile studio and classroom; form a national digital content creation division to produce programming for local and national audiences; expand PBS SoCal Education’s Ready to Learn and K-12 services; and bolster the content and visibility for PBS SoCal’s OC Channel.From left, Russ Leatherby of Leatherby Family Offices; Mary Lyons, PBS SoCal Board secretary; Dr. Jo Ellen Chatam, PBS SoCal Board president; Ed Arnold, host of Real Orange; Clifford; Rogers; Costa Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan; Heidi Cortese of R.C.C. Inc. and S. Paul Musco of Gemini Industries. (Image: Wayne Todd/PBS SoCal)

Quick Takes

DEI unveils iPhone app for PMDMC confab

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The latest iPhone app release for public media is tailor-made for attendees of this week’s Public Media Development and Marketing conference in Pittsburgh. The app is built to run on the iOS4 iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad, and includes details of the full conference schedule, maps of the conference hotel, and links to PMDMC Facebook and Twitter feeds. The Publink icon offers discounts to Pittsburgh restaurants and cultural venues. The app, offered by DEI and co-sponsors JacAPPS and Publink, is a free download from the iTunes store.

Programs/Content

Life without CPB aid scary to LJC startups

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The seven Local Journalism Centers that launched with major support from CPB have suddenly found themselves on a short timeline to find ways to earn more of their keep. So far, CPB has committed only the two-year sums announced at the initiative’s launch last year and has told some grantees to expect smaller amounts for 2012. Uncertainties over future CPB aid — as well as problems with the diffuse management structures that cloud decision-making and fiscal accountability for at least one LJC — have complicated plans to keep the regional news collaborations going, according to news directors who participated in a June 24 panel at the Public Radio News Directors conference in Arlington, Va. Station execs behind Changing Gears, the LJC that staffed up last August to cover efforts to revive manufacturing in the Upper Midwest, have begun making contingency plans to continue the work if CPB aid ends, said Torey Malatia of Chicago’s WBEZ, one of three stations behind the center. “We’re committed to keeping it going in some form,” he said.

Quick Takes

Financial outlook dims for indies in public media

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Independent journalists in public media are having an increasingly tough time earning a living as producers for public TV and radio, according to a survey commissioned by the Association of Independents in Radio and the Independent Television Service. Over the past three years, 66 percent of radio indies who responded to the survey reported worsening financial problems.

The survey by Market Trends Research, backed by CPB, drew responses from 206 indies who have created content for public TV, radio or affiliated websites in the past two years. The income outlook among radio indies, who made up 75 percent of survey respondents, is somewhat brighter than for those working in television, film and web production. Forty-one percent of TV and film indies said they expect to work with nonprofits and foundations as a source of future income, and nearly one-third see opportunities in education. Radio indies participating in the survey expressed optimism about their ties to local stations.

Quick Takes

As clock ticks, Native groups ask FCC for more time

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Native Public Media and the National Congress of American Indians are warning the FCC that many tribal licensees may be unable to meet deadlines for station construction permits granted since 2007. For one week that October, the FCC accepted applications for new full-power noncommercial educational stations — the first time the agency had done so in seven years. Native American groups spread the word about the rare opportunity to claim a share of FM spectrum. Tribal organizations filed 58 applications and won 38 construction permits (CPs). If built, the stations will more than double the 33 currently broadcasting to tribal lands nationwide (Current, Nov.

Quick Takes

Republican lawmakers preserve most funding for SCETV

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South Carolina ETV avoided steep funding cuts last month as the state’s Republican-controlled legislature thwarted Gov. Nikki Haley’s attempt to eliminate two-thirds of state support for the pubcasting network. Haley had proposed cutting about $5.9 million of the $9 million that the state provides for SCETV, which makes up about half of the network’s budget. But lawmakers in both the House and Senate overrode Haley’s request in nearly unanimous votes June 29. In the end, only about 6 percent of the network’s budget was cut, according to SCETV spokesperson Rob Schaller. House Majority Leader Kenny Bingham angrily criticized Haley in a speech on the floor.

Quick Takes

Grants bolster Native radio program services

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Two foundation grants will back capacity-building for Koahnic Broadcasting Corporation, the public media nonprofit that operates KNBA in Anchorage, Alaska, and produces the nationally distributed broadcasts Native America Calling and National Native News.The grants, totaling $375,000, support a three-year effort to strengthen KBC’s Native radio programming and distribution services. Ford Foundation committed $300,000 to the initiative and the Nathan Cummings Foundation provided the balance.KBC distributes news, public affairs and cultural programs through Native Voice One, a service that has gained 11 new affiliates this past year and anticipates serving new tribal stations in Louisiana, Idaho and New York State, according to a news release announcing the grants. “This is critical support at this time when the FCC has issued a priority for Tribal organizations to obtain broadcast radio licenses,” said KBC President Jaclyn Sallee. “This can lead to unprecedented growth in the Native stations that are using KBC’s Native program and distribution services.”Expansion of Native radio is at a critical juncture, as Current reports in today’s print edition. Many of the Native groups that won construction permits to build new stations in 2007 are nearing the three-year deadline to get their stations on the air.

Development

After scandal, fundraisers debate ethics

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Having witnessed the damaging one-round knockout of NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller in March, public radio’s development pros are working to adapt the lessons they’ve learned about ethics and prudence into a set of best-practices guidelines for use throughout the field. But they’re already tiptoeing around a clear discrepancy between the major ethical code of professional fundraisers and a common practice in public broadcasting — paid commissions on underwriting sales. DEI, the national agency for pubradio fundraising that convenes its annual Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in Pittsburgh later this week, has assembled a group to draft ethical standards for fundraising in nonprofit public media. DEI is leading the re-evaluation as part of its CPB-backed Leadership for Philanthropy project, which aims to help stations improve their major-gift fundraising. The main starting point for DEI’s advisory council is the Code of Ethical Principles and Standards of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, which prohibits commission-based compensation for nonprofit fundraisers.

Quick Takes

NPR, PBS focusing on corporate sponsor opportunities, mag says

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Public broadcasting “has proved helpful to a growing list of advertisers across multiple categories,” according to a story today (July 11) on NPR and PBS corporate sponsorship in Advertising Age magazine. Fox Searchlight gave NPR the entire broadcast marketing budget for the highly anticipated May release of director Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life.” Dan Pittman, senior v.p.-media at Fox Searchlight, told the magazine, “NPR’s audience dovetails well with the campaigns for many of our films, which tend to appeal to educated, sophisticated audiences.” PBS is also desirable, because being on it “means being associated with someone committed to the arts, quality TV and preserving PBS’s desire to infiltrate knowledge and education, not just pure entertainment,” said Darcy Bowe of Starcom USA, which assists corporate and brand-level clients on PBS buys.The magazine says NPR is focusing on underwriting for streaming radio and podcasts. Digital now accounts for 20 percent of NPR’s sponsorship revenue and has increased 10 percent this fiscal year.

Quick Takes

Two managers out at Nightly Business Report

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Two longtime top newsroom managers are gone from Nightly Business Report in Miami. Managing Editor Wendie Feinberg and Rodney Ward, executive vice president of special projects, are no longer with the show, according to a July 8 statement. Co-anchor Tom Hudson is assuming Feinberg’s responsibilities. Feinberg joined the show in April 1995. Ward has been with NBR since its debut in 1979.

Programs/Content

Life without CPB aid scary to Local Journalism Center startups

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The seven Local Journalism Centers that launched with major support from CPB have suddenly found themselves on a short timeline to find ways to earn more of their keep. So far, CPB has committed only the two-year sums announced at the initiative’s launch last year and has told some grantees to expect smaller amounts for 2012. Uncertainties over future CPB aid — as well as problems with the diffuse management structures that cloud decision-making and fiscal accountability for at least one LJC — have complicated plans to keep the regional news collaborations going, according to news directors who participated in a June 24 panel at the Public Radio News Directors conference in Arlington, Va. Station execs behind Changing Gears, the LJC that staffed up last August to cover efforts to revive manufacturing in the Upper Midwest, have begun making contingency plans to continue the work if CPB aid ends, said Torey Malatia of Chicago’s WBEZ, one of three stations behind the center. “We’re committed to keeping it going in some form,” he said.

Programs/Content

Arts try out for PBS slot on Fridays

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With a nod to mission — and a bid for more major donors — PBS is spotlighting the arts for nine weeks this fall, hoping to bring them back as a regular feature of Friday nights. Productions in the first PBS Arts Fall Festival range from the Los Angeles Opera’s Il Postino to the broadcast premiere of Cameron Crowe’s documentary on grunge-rock pioneers Pearl Jam. The network pulled together some $2 million in funding for the shows, each paired with a different locale and station. The festival will culminate with a yet-to-be-announced fundraising special during December pledge drives. Ratings-wise, it’s a risky move.

Programs/Content

StateImpact pilot begins scrutiny of government in eight states

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Pubcasters in three states have started airing reports and posting stories online as the first participants in StateImpact, a large-scale project spearheaded by NPR that could unite the member stations and the network for an unprecedented level of collaborative newsgathering. The objective: to strengthen coverage of state government in all 50 states in coming years. Visit stateimpact. npr.org and you’ll see a map of the United States with three states highlighted in green — Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania. Stations in these states have gone live with their own StateImpact sites, with links from the national site.

Quick Takes

Blog chooses CPB’s Harrison for weekly honor

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CPB President Pat Harrison was recently selected as “People’s Hero of the Week” by the Broadband and Social Justice Blog from the Minority Media and Telecom Council. Harrison was praised for leading CPB’s strategic focus on the three D’s: digital (investments in innovation and technology), dialogue (investments in local community engagement, partnerships and service) and diversity (investments and commitment to diversity of content, talent, and service), and its creation of the Diversity and Innovation Fund for public media.